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Draeger SCBA issues
I got a call yesterday from a good friend of mine. Four members of their department went to a training and all four of their SCBA mask lenses were melted in an evolution. The instructor in the same evolution was wearing a Scott and had no trouble. Now, before you say they did something stupid, here is some brief information.
Temps: Ceiling 1000 degree range
Head level 600 degrees
Floor about 400 degrees where they were laying.
These SCBA are less than 2 years old. No other gear was damaged or melted. I am looking for similar situations or other known problems with these packs.
Another issue is that the guys are issued their own masks. They do not have spare maks, not known why. The powers that be are keeping these masks in service. I advised him to have the Union send a letter of notification that the feel there is a safety issue and that this is unacceptable.
Temps: Ceiling 1000 degree range
Head level 600 degrees
Floor about 400 degrees where they were laying.
These SCBA are less than 2 years old. No other gear was damaged or melted. I am looking for similar situations or other known problems with these packs.
Another issue is that the guys are issued their own masks. They do not have spare maks, not known why. The powers that be are keeping these masks in service. I advised him to have the Union send a letter of notification that the feel there is a safety issue and that this is unacceptable.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Rick K. on
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Doesn't sound good at all !!!!!!!!!!Now a few tears back we were going to update are scba's which were scott and different brands were dropped by the station for us to try and we really think a lot about scott scba's but to make everyone happy we tried other's but just didn't seem to perforem just right so we stayed with scott and in my book there the only way to go!Now thats just my opinion!!Now Draeger was one of the first we tried and was the first to go!!!!!!But again just my opinion!
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Permalink Reply by Jason Brooks on
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We did the same testing at our place. This is not the issue here. I appreciate the comments guys. I am looking for specific information. This is not a "which brand do you like" post.
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Permalink Reply by Jason Green on
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We're currently going through testing for a complete replacement of our airpaks. We currently use MSA (about 4 different types) and we've looked at Sperian, MSA, Drager and Scott. The Scott and Sperian were rejected right away. We've had a couple of demonstrations each on the MSA and the Drager. The question about the melting masks was asked at the demo to the Drager Canada Tech that was there. He explained that the SCBA the department was wearing was Drager's INDUSTRIAL model, NOT their firefighting model. The mask on the industrial model, as with other manufacturers does not meet NFPA standards. You gotta know what you're buying. I'm also sure you can't compare 20 year old airpacks with today's models. I never thought in a million years that Drager would be my choice, but it's a no brainer. I've been on departments that used Scott and one that uses MSA. I've never had a pack as comfortable as the Drager on.
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The masks in my example were from NFPA packs.
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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on
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The powers that be are keeping these masks in service. I advised him to have the Union send a letter of notification that the feel there is a safety issue and that this is unacceptable.
Absolutely. There is no reason the dept should be taking chances and this issue needs to go to the company so they can check things out, especially if there may be a recall issue. Drager is a reputable company and I'm sure would take care of the issue, but to keep the facepieces in service anyway is a stupid move.
Now when I used Dragers, we never had any such problems, nor have I heard of any issues from those depts around here that do use them as well.
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Look at the serial number on the mask. If it is for firefighting it should have an R in front of it. If not, it doesn't have a thermal layer on it. That's what was explained to us.
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