Line of Duty Deaths, Cardiac Related. WHAT THE HELL ARE WE DOING?

Brothers and sisters, 2010 is not off to a good start for the fire service. Yesterday I read about our sixth LODD that occurred in Arkansas, and which happened to be cardiac related. Did you know this was the fifth LODD this year that was cardiac related? That's 5 out of 6 people!

Looking back at 2009, we had 93 LODD notifications from the U.S. Fire Administration. Out of those 93 deaths, 45 were cardiac related. I know it's early, but if our trend for 2010 continues, we may pass last year's number.

I ask these questions to the Chiefs on here. What are you doing to prevent cardiac related deaths in your department?

· Do you require NFPA 1582 physicals for new employees and/or volunteers? If so, do you also require annual NFPA 1582 physicals? If not, you better review OSHA 1910.156(b)(2).

· Do you require firefighters to maintain the same physical entrance standards for the duration of employment/membership?

· Do you have a Physical Fitness SOP/SOG requirement for on duty personnel?

For the line officers and supervisors, paid and volunteer. Do you,

· promote physical fitness to your firefighters?

· lead by example and join in during PT?

· promote healthy eating while on shift?

· speak with crews about the risks of obesity, heart disease, and smoking, and unhealthy eating?

· have a reading of the latest LODD notifications during shift briefing, or post them in the station for all to see highlighting the cause of death?

For the firefighters. Do you, or have you

· made yourself aware that heart disease is a leading killer of firefighters, both paid and volunteer. Even more so than tanker and POV collisions?

· made an effort to make and keep yourself physically fit for duty by eating healthy meals and working out both on and off duty?

· talked with fellow firefighters, and supervisors on the importance of living a healthy lifestyle, and been leading by example?

I don't expect everyone to be a marathon runner, UFC fighter, or Olympic Weightlifter. There are no excuses though for not losing weight, eating right, and working out!

What I'm about to say is harsh, but the truth. If you are a firefighter, or emergency service worker with cardiac problems, obese, and/or not able to physically perform duties, then you are a ticking time bomb, and liability.

I don't care if you give the excuse of, "well I'm a driver only, or fire police, EMS only or just don't go inside". You are dead wrong, and still a liability. There have been plenty of drivers, fire police, etc who have collapsed on scene and became a cardiac related LODD. Just go back and look at LODD listings for previous years.

Let's all do something to prevent this stuff from happening again.

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Permalink Reply by Dustin J. Millis on March 8, 2010 at 5:54am

lol... When I went last year; I walked right past that booth and absolutly no one was there! Just a tv playing a video and some literature about the site..... But yes, I will be attending again this year (hmmm... maybe I can get another free pass lol) and I will be sure to stop by. I will be 21 this year too so we can go down to the red garter and grab a drink!

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Permalink Reply by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on March 8, 2010 at 8:10pm

Don't forget the cigars. We gotta smoke cigars on the streets of Indy.

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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on March 8, 2010 at 8:48pm

Maybe it's that we're targeting the wrong things. Good diet, excercise, and fitness will help with the traditional heart disease that caused STEMI heart attacks.

It won't help at all with dehydration heart attacks, cyanide inhalation/absorption heart attacks, and genetic disorders that cause cardiac dysrhytmias.

Fitness is a good thing - it adds strength and stamina. However, it may provide a false sense of security. There are a lot more Superman Syndrome firefighters among the superbly fit Combat Challenge/Smoke Diver types than there are among the ones with some extra lbs who know their limitations. The Superman Syndrome could be a contributing factor - some of those guys simply might not know where their limits are until they exceed them - fatally.

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Permalink Reply by Dustin J. Millis on March 9, 2010 at 12:09am

Sounds good! See ya there!

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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on March 9, 2010 at 12:30am

"...supervised fitness programs do in fact reduce the risks to an occupation which has been linked to increased cardiac-related on the job deaths."

Increased compared to what? Previous years' cardiac-realated LODDs? Look around - the complaint is that the cardiac LODD statistics haven't changed much over the years.

Compared to the general population?? Well, since the statistics clearly show that the general population has many times the per-capita cardiac death rate as firefighters, then that can't be it.

So, what exactly are you comparing the firefighter cardiac LODD rate to in that statement?

"I know I would be hard pressed to find any fire department physician, or city insurance retained physician that would argue the point that there is no scientific evidence pointing towards firefighter fitness helping to reduce the chance of cardiac disease."

How many of the firefighter cardiac LODDs are related to cardiac disease compared to how many are related to dehydration/clotting mechanism alterations, CN toxicity, genetic traits, dysrhythmias, etc? If those physicians can't cite those statistics, then they're basing a firefighter medical issue on an extrapolation from the general population, which are not exposed to the same hazards and risks for non-traditional cardiac-related death. That means taking a set of rules for population Set A and applying them to population Set B, even though the much different variables for Set B have not been controlled in any kind of responsible research.

I don't think that you'd find any responsible physician that would tell you that improving physical fitness is going to reduce the cardiac LODD rate if that physician is educated to the special conditions and emerging research about how the unique stresses of firefighting affect the human body. Because, after all, that wouldn't be scientific, would it?