I was just refreshing my memory when replying to another topic on PPE by looking @ the 2007 NIOSH report again. I find those things totally interesting myself & I really believe that every Safety Officer & Fire Chief should study them.

I am NOT making this a Career vs Volunteer issue. But I find some of the comparisons very thought provoking. Some of these facts are alarming!!
There were 22 career fire fighter deaths operating @ fire ground, 18 of those were trapped while on the volunteer side there were 12 deaths on the fire ground and 5 of those were trapped. That is 43% career vs 9% volley being trapped. Also remember that again 9 of those were 1 incident in Charleston.

What I find EXTREMELY interesting is that 49% of the fire fighter deaths of VOLUNTEER fire fighters was due to accidents responding to or returning from an alarm while 10% of the career deaths were from the same thing. I can come up with a bunch of different factors that might have some bearing but around here the volunteer trucks are more up to date than some of the municiple stuff.

Experience does seem to be a factor since 21(40%) volunteer deaths were with 5 yrs of experiencd or less while there were 8 (19%) career in the same range.

I used to think that the cardiac deaths were a lot higher on the volunteer side but last year they were 36% career & 40% volunteer. I have given a lot of thought to weather this is also attributed to the fact that there may not be as many volunteers on the scene & they work longer or harder because of that. We volunteers tend to have more of the "Oh Shit!!" factor than the career guys too and we aren't as conscious of onscene rehab either. I have a theory on dehydration and cardiac incidents. I also think that we tend to relate chest pain to indigestion or ignore it & call it being tired. I wonder how many survived cardiac incidents.

I am looking for an an accident & injury report.