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Post by 911wacker on Sept 25, 2006 2:32:34 GMT -5
According to U.S. Fire Administration statistics, nearly 20-25% of accidental deaths in the fire service are related to vehicles, and many, if not most, of these accidents involve intersections. A study published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine (December 2002) “Occupational Fatalities in Emergency Medical Services: A Hidden Crisis” states the leading cause of occupational fatalities for EMS personnel during the study period (1992-1997) was transportation incidents (86/114 fatalities).
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24wacker1
Full Member
Can't we all just get along?
Posts: 77
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Post by 24wacker1 on Sept 25, 2006 15:41:56 GMT -5
Great poll Stermer. This is an issue that I'm trying to push in my department right now only with a little twist. I would like to not only refresh on driving or evoc, but complete qualification on fire apparatus. How many times do you see a piece of apparatus arrive on the fire scene only to have the operator have no idea how to get water in one side and out the other. It's a great idea and I would like to see re-qualification on all apparatus every so many years. I'm just stuck trying to implement and enforce the issue.
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Post by fireman31 on Sept 25, 2006 16:18:48 GMT -5
this is a good poll. with all the accidents that i've see liturature of. The emergancy services or it may be alot easyer on all departments and unints if we do it our selves and impliment a standard of renual of once a year at leest to renew evoc. as a member of the emergancy responce team at my empoyeer my evoc is renewed every year with a test maybe this plus a practical hands on drivers test wouldnt hurt anyone. it might be a good idea to make it manditory for all of age members to do this every year. then make a notification in your by-laws that if you dont renew evoc evoc each year you dont drive equipmant untill you're up to date.
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Post by 911wacker on Sept 25, 2006 23:55:19 GMT -5
New York State Department of Motor Vehicle statistics illustrate a consistent yearly frequency of over 400 ambulance accidents or crashes, injuring almost 2 persons per day. These statistics also show that most of these accidents are avoidable. Based on these statistics, if each EMS response vehicle were able to stop at every controlled intersection, 75% of all of these accidents could be prevented.
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Firefighter Statistics - 2002
CAUSES OF DEATH Heart attacks were the top cause of death in 2003, claiming the lives of at least 42 firefighters, 38 percent of all firefighter deaths for the year. The victims ranged from age 35 to 81, with an average age of 52.7.
Heart attacks have been a top killer every year studied by the USFA although in 2001 they were dwarfed by the 346 firefighter deaths due to terrorism at the World Trade Center. There were 31 heart attacks in 2002, 34 in 2001, 30 in 2000 and 54 in 1999.
The majority of the other firefighters who died on duty in 2003 died of traumatic injuries from motor vehicle accidents, operations at structure fires, wildfires, training accidents, and falls. Sixty firefighters, or 55 percent of all firefighters who died on duty on 2003, suffered injuries from these types of activities, most often motor vehicle accidents. Some of the year's highest profile tragedies involved motor vehicle accidents, including the crash that claimed eight Oregon firefighters on their way home from fighting a wildfire in South Fork, Idaho, and the drunk driving crash that killed 16-year-old Wyoming fire explorer Anndee Huber.
Firefighter Statistics - 2004
There were a total of 104 incidents that took the lives of firefighters in 2004:
Career firefighters, those who are employed full-time as firefighters, comprised 29 deaths (27%) in 2004.
Volunteer, seasonal, and part-time firefighters accounted for 78 deaths.
Half of the firefighters that died in 2004 died from traumatic injuries such as asphyxiation, burns, drowning, vehicle crashes, and other physical injuries.
Taken from: lifesaving.com
[glow=red,2,300]Yes, heart attacks are the leading cause of firefighter deaths, this we cannot directly control. But, the second leading cause is trauma from mainly MVC's with emergency vehicles and POV's.................So I wonder why we seldom here this mentioned except for that time when you took EVOC umpteen years ago?[/glow]
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Post by Medic13 on Oct 11, 2006 23:52:49 GMT -5
Found this article on the net. Although I can't say I agree that each of the "What if's" would have prevented the accident, I think it does a good job illustrating how important each link in the chain is for a good operation. www.emergencydispatch.org/articles/Whatawaste.html
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Post by 2Truck on Oct 12, 2006 14:41:55 GMT -5
Good points about having people re-certify for driving duties. To add a little bit more who actually has documented how a driver is to operate the apparatus? Is your driver training process documented as to what an individual has to do to become a driver and who is the person/s who decide who can drive and who can not? Also what requirements does each department have for anyone to operate a piece of apparatus? Just some food for thought people. Stay safe and don't let the grass start to grow under the tires.
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