Tag Archives: firefighter injuries

I'm also not sure how these five topics address "back to basics." To my mind, this year's Safety Stand Down should be using the five days to address firefighter safety issues that continue to plague the fire service across the board after decades (e.g., lack of seatbelt use, lack of accountability systems, not wear PPE correctly or appropriately). Building the Foundation of a Training Program; Assessing the Needs of the Community and Department; Safety During Training; Physical and Behavioral/Mental Health Considerations; and the 12 Foundations of Fire Department Training.

Does your fire department have a written firefighter mayday procedure (SOG)? If not, you should be asking why not? If it does, how skilled and practiced are you and your peers at following the procedure in the event you find yourself in a mayday situation?

And yes, the flashover was just as it is described in all the firefighting textbooks. That, I can verify. I don’t remember much after that. I remember my arms in front of me, falling, my head and body striking something, which turned out to be the first floor. I remember hearing the horn sounding for a firefighter evacuation.

How many of our leaders are taking the information from NIOSH Firefighter Fatality Reports and using that information to take a good, hard and objective look at their organization and asking the tough question, "What are we doing to prevent this from happening here?

I’m not saying that firefighting as a whole is becoming obsolete, but I am proposing that we need to get out of the “pot” before we become boiled. Our approach to interior structural firefighting needs some serious restructuring lest we will only see more firefighters encountering flashovers upon arrival, structures weakened to their collapse point before firefighters arrive, and firefighters developing cancers more frequently from airborne and skin exposure hazards.

According to a December 2016 story published in the Denver Post, the Denver Fire Department saw a 42 percent decrease in worker’s comp claims from overexertion as well as the cost of treating injuries to lower backs, shoulders and knees (Which, along with overexertion, accounted for the majority of the department’s worker’s compensation costs).  

I’ve always believed that the most important aspect of better firefighter health and safety is the person who uses the equipment: the firefighter. The personal behaviors of the individual firefighter will always have the greatest influence on firefighter health and safety.

The necessary changes in the way that fire departments operate to reduce firefighter deaths and injuries continues to move at a "glacial pace." How long before we really change our safety behaviors?

By: Nathalie Michaud After I received the diagnosis of my PTSD in late Summer 2014, I was partly relieved because now I knew why I felt and thought the way I did. It didn’t make it any easier to accept, but now that there was a name for it, a bit of the “ET” syndrome went away. I had choices: ...

A powerful piece of prose about one firefighter's "come to Jesus" moment with firefighters and cancer. An equally powerful message about how everyone in the fire service needs to "get on the bus" concerning firefighting and the dramatically increased risk of developing cancer we--and our families--face.