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Injuries During Trainings
TRAINING INJURIES
I keep hearing about people being injured during trainings. And recently I have even heard of a few deaths during training.
What types of injuries have you seen or experienced or know of which happened during trainings?
What types of things could have been done to prevent the injuries?
Here are a few, of the many, injuries that I know happened during trainings:
- a new guy in firefighter school fell down a flight of stairs in a smoke house - with an air pack on - tore his bicep muscle off his bone - could have killed him... FF was in proper gear... there was an officer standing at the top and bottom of the stairs monitoring it during the drill since they were aware the stairs were extremely dangerous... (more extreme safety measure should have been put in place - perhaps the stairs removed and entrance to stairwell permanently boarded off)... this was old bldg in town used as a regular training bldg, shortly after this condemned by the town and deemed unsafe for training even
- a seasoned guy broke his leg during hose testing when a charged line jumped and snapped his leg as it charged when they stepped over the line... FF was in proper gear... the person charging the line did not double check and call to ensure everyone was clear of the line (much like when defibrillating - maybe yell CLEAR)
- 2 officers and 3 new guys got burned on face and neck from a flashover at a training burn - burning down a building as a courtesy to a townsperson - small building, fast burn... FF's were in proper gear... scene evaluation and prep was done, however, when the bldg began to burn to fast, aborting the plan to enter should have been considered more seriously
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by FETC on
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I am going to address each one individually with my opinion.
#1 - Falling down the stairs can happen in ANY decreased visability enironment. The question is what were they doing. Were they standing up and walking (or) were they kneeling and crawling in poor visability? What happened to sounding the floor? IMO a lost art today. Using a tool to feel if the floor is there or not? The fact that they fell down the stairs alone doesn't mean we should board them up and never train with them in place.
Survey says - "preventable" That is called a breakdown in basic firefighter training.
plus you state they ahd two safety officers at each end of the stairs.... did they each have a TIC?
#2 - Hose testing using a fire engine is not the safest method today. Extremely high pressures with quick buildup and when a line bursts, the operator needs to shut down because we now have a whippin hose. Doesn't happen with an NFPA approved hose tester. No hip, hop, or jump..... no water source to flow high pressure water through a broken line. Just the boredom of listening to a little electric motor build air pressure.
Survey says, "preventable" costs alot less then the medical bills of the brother injured.
#3 - NFPA 1403 in place? rapid heat and fire buildup... Was any accelerants being used? The empty acquired structure used today with proper prep, and using ONLY hay and pallets for NFPA 1403 approved fuels, hardly has enough source to have any rapid build up or flashovers.
Survey says, "preventable" with the use of appropriate fuels, ignition operator with safety line in the room, safety officer inside from ignition til the crews make entry, and 1 certified instructor per each hoseline, and the list goes on and on.
As a professional trainer nobody wants anyone to get injured in training, it is supposed to be a learning environment. But most injuries / deaths that do occur in training are highly preventable if professional standards are followed.
FETC
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Permalink Reply by Anthony McNulty on
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No one on my department has ever been injured during training. The only thing I can say about incidents like this is all a department can do is better their safety practices and policies and learn from things like this. Sometimes things happen that are obviously due to human error. However, our profession is known to be inherently dangerous and sometimes thigs just happen.
Like I said we should learn from these things and adapt accordingly.
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Permalink Reply by capcityff on
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It happens here sometimes. Not everything is preventable. It's a dangerous job and accidents happen. When you have over 2000 firemen training(500/day) every day of the week, something will happen. We're only human. I think the last two classes that went through rookie school each had a recruit injured during ladder bailouts where they dislocated their shoulders. During the burn weeks there's usually a few that get burned up a little bit. During PT there's going to be a few that end up in the hospital. Most injuries seem to take place in rookie school though. One reason is that some of them aren't meant to do this job. By the time the academy ends, the ones that can't handle it are fired.
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Permalink Reply by Fabulous Heather Days of Summer on
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Thanks for your input.
You comments cause me to wonder...
Does some one have to get injured to figure out that they are not cut out for the job?
Does someone have to get injured to learn proper skills?
Are procedures changed when an injury occurs?
Is operator (FF) [human] error a sufficient reason to maintain the status quo?
Having worked in an industrial lock out / tag out setting on several occasions - industrial companies - who have dangerous jobs take great pride in posting their number of days without injury and work very hard to prevent ALL injury to ALL people ALL the time. And they put safety precautions in place to help reduce operator error.
So the injuries that you listed... was there anything that could have been done differently to prevent any of them?
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Permalink Reply by Norm Tindell on
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I'm knocking on wood: No one has ever been injured in training at our department. A buddy at a nearby department slipped on a landing at the drill tower, fell and hurt his back. It was bad enough he took early retirement and is receiving disability. I certainly hope we'll all make our own safety the TOP priority anytime we're training...and working, too.
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Thanks for your input. I was just thinking about your comment that no one has gotten injured at a training on your department. EVER ?
I have noticed that there also seems to be a culture in some departments to cover up injuries, since they do not want to be pulled off the job and / or consider the injury an acceptable workplace hazard and / or pride ??? Sometimes we hear about the injuries later on.
Do you think injuries increase when multiple departments train together, since the standards can be slightly (or dramatically) different between departments?
Yes, I posed some questions below to CapCity about human error - such as, is operator (FF) [human] error a sufficient reason to maintain the status quo?
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My point was that you can't prevent EVERY single accident. That's why it's called an accident. If some recruit was doing a ladder bail out and dislocated his shoulder, then I would like to hear any suggestions to prevent that. The only one I can think of is not do them.
If someone is worked hard during PT and goes to the hospital for dehydration then maybe the person should think twice about the job. If it's the whole class then it's different.
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We run our training exercises on a serious straight and narrow. We do live burn training regularly and no one has been injured, at least in the last 10 years I've been familiar with the department. We have a firemen that have been injure in the LOD, but not during training.
Absolutely when multiple departments train together there is certainly a higher risk of injury. I would say the standards between my department and others around us are DRAMATICALLY different. Our department doesn't (knock on wood) experience injuries during training due mostly to the fact that we follow NFPA and OSHA safety standards word for word letter for letter. The departments around us can't say the same thing.
For instance....A couple months ago we had a citizen donate a house to a neighboring fire department to use for live burn training. While the 18 yo+ IFSAC certified firefighters trained doing interior attacks, the department running the exercise allowed the jr. firefighters from their department to tote hay bales and buckets of deisel fuel into the house...and I dont mean just into the door, I mean anywhere inside the building. To top that off they were entering a smoldering house turnout coats unzipped, no helmets, no airpacks. Now on my station, if you are under 18 and not in compliance with the NFPA standard for certification by the state, you aren't allowed to even respond to structure fires for safety and insurance purposes...that however was perfectly acceptable to their department brass.
These varying training and safety standards would certainly contribute to higher injury percentages. As for human error...thats the perfect reason to change things. I have had my life and the lives of my brothers threatened by particularly nasty fires. Situations where if we werent able to keep our heads and remember our training, things would have turned out rather unfortunate. For this reason, if you miss more than two training sessions, you are placed on probation until you make up that training. Training saves lives...citizen laypeople, and emergency services workers alike.
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Permalink Reply by Paul Montpetit on
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We always put mattresses at the bottom of stairs when working (training) with reduced vision or under windows when doing 1st floor bail-outs...2nd story we have safety lines in place and the people are roped in...at all times we limit trainees to trainers at 3 students to 1 trainer(or assistant trainer) for control purposes. Safety is stressed at ALL times. For live fires we have one dedicated hand line charged and manned overseeing the students going through the evolution(with a training assistant in attendance) When students go through the Burn building we have an instructor in front and behind..in that way if a student panics they can't get separated, no matter which way they go they would run into and instructor. Good planning , a good briefing, and good people prevent injuries, we are not there to get people hurt.
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You can't prevent all injuries, but yyou CAN minimize them and that should be the goal.
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Permalink Reply by Chris Weber on
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I hurt my back once doing vehicle extrication training.Nothing major,just a trip to the chiropracter.Just turned wrong and slipped a little bit.I can't think of anything even close to being a major accident though.Just a couple cuts or scrapes.We've actually been pretty lucky over the years.I do agree.MOST accidents are preventable,but something is bound to happen eventually whether it is serious or not.Just have to do the absolute best we can to make sure it doesn't happen.
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Permalink Reply by Patti Walz on
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In my class one recruit was injured when he was carrying a bundle of 5" house improperly. Instead of using the dolly or a pry bar would have worked, one person was carrying the house from behind and one was in front walking backwards. The connection dropped and the recruit stepped on it and twisted his ankle/knee. He was out for the rest of the academy. This could have been prevented by the instructor telling the guys to get a tool to carry it.
Accidents are bound to happen, but can be reduced if there is proper training. We learn by what we are shown.
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