Danger Everywhere

Danger  Everywhere

By Alan Perry

I came across an article on the NFPA website titled "Firefighter Injuries in the United States", the article summarized some dry data, but I was able to pull a few interesting take way points from it for you to consider.

54% of injuries occur in places other than the fire ground. While fire ground injuries still account for the largest single venue for injury, the majority are occurring elsewhere in training, non-fire events and responding to and from calls.

Since 1981, total fire ground injuries have fallen, but the number of injuries per 1000 fire calls has remained nearly the same.  This demonstrates little improvement in fire ground safety.

The total of non-fire injuries have increased during the same period, with the number of injuries per 1000 non-fire calls declining; an improvement it would seem.

The data does not differentiate EMS calls within the non-fire emergencies even though these account for upwards of 80% of the call volume in most municipal fire departments these days. That may explain the increase in the total non-fire injuries but further study is needed.

My point, if there was one, would be that while Improving safety on the fire ground is still a priority - we need to consider safety and injury prevention in all our actions. On a purely curious note; why does the fire service continue to frame every study in terms of fire ground vs. non-fire if over 80% of our activity is EMS. Why not just add EMS call related injuries? Perhaps it would skew the intended message.

Be Safe,

Alan

Reference:

Firefighter Injuries in the U.S., M. Karter Jr. & J. Molis, October 2013, NFPA