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Comment by FETC on April 9, 2010 at 12:32pm

Mike with all due respect, when was the last time you ran on the fireground? It is frowned upon from day 1. When was the last time you asked a professional basketball player to wear 100bs of gear, some of which hang off your body and play a basketball game? They would say what? Are you asking me to get hurt. They are also fit athletes. Now take a firefighter who is not an athlete, you are increasing the chances for minor injuries or cardiac incident. Our gear is designed to protect you from the elements, now wearing our gear in a cardiac related sporting event we are heating up our core temperature which is another danger being studied by the medical world.

All I am saying is I have seen injuries before, and seen what a department had to go through with claims after trying to justify the training. And injuries during training are simply not acceptable. The goal of this drill was to teach air management and there are safer ways to do that. MHO.

Comment by Capt./Chaplain Mike Petrosky on April 9, 2010 at 10:50am

Besides our human body is not designed to play basketball (twisting, rotational forces on our knees, ankles and spine with quick starts and stops with that amount of gear on. Besides you have limited visiblity, and the chance of crashing into others or falling with an air pack on in increased.

Not to be a nay sayer or anything like that, but isn't the above statement kinda opposite of what real firefighting is? Low visibility, gear on that causes heaviness and a good workout while in a structure, etc. MHO

Comment by FETC on April 3, 2010 at 9:37am

I have seen this type of training before around my way. To be honest is dangerous. Most firefighters will get a little overly ambitious to win and then the controlled environment turns into uncontrolled. Besides our human body is not designed to play basketball (twisting, rotational forces on our knees, ankles and spine with quick starts and stops with that amount of gear on. Besides you have limited visiblity, and the chance of crashing into others or falling with an air pack on in increased. Professional atheletes do not even use this type of physical demand during workouts. What I have seen is these usually end up with one or two injuries, ambulance rides and workmens comp claims. Try explaining to workmens comp the qualitive aspect of this training.

Training is suppost to be a safe, learning environment. You can re-create the cardio portion of fireground work on a treadmill and eliminate the rotational forces, bodies crashing into eachother in a controlled environment.

Comment by Brian on March 26, 2010 at 3:07am

That is a great idea. Upset I never thought of that myself...

Comment by Borislav Germanov on March 26, 2010 at 2:06am

Congrats!