Turnout Gear on Medical Emergencies

I have been asked to discuss turnout gear use on medical emergencies. Does your department prohibit or allow turnout gear to be used on medical emergencies? What other considerations exist including appearance, cross contamination, body substance isolation, OHSA etc? Our department does not specifically allow the gear on medical emergencies but if they are on their way back from a fire or motor vehicle collision and catch a medical they wear their turnout gear.

Your thoughts, policies, procedures, guidelines etc?

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Permalink Reply by greg thomas on April 7, 2011 at 8:33pm

true on other peoples comments it deals with number one issue bsi, and appearance. i have noted on several departments that are in my area that they wear turnout gear when arriving at the e.r and their appearance is clean and professional. my dept requires the same thing, appearance is clean you can wear it. bsi on that yes, cross contamination but your the fire dept i dont think anybosy is going to gripe about you wearing turnout gear on a medical scene or when your at the emergency room. bsi like when we all went through emt school bsi is numnber one. so yes it could give you that extra layer of protection when a patient bleeding profusly.

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Permalink Reply by Karsten Nelson on April 18, 2011 at 4:35pm

In my volunteer department I always wear my turn out gear, mostly just pants, because often I am arriving wearing shorts. Our administration incourages us to do what we feel is best for our own safety, and layers are good. On the other hand I am a career industrial firefighter, and we never wear our gear on medicals. It is mostly a cultural thing, but is also impractical in most cases due to limited working space and the types of medical issues we respond to. It is not too often that we have "excess DNA" flying around. It is mostly strains and sprains.