NFPA Journal - November/December 2013 - (Page 63)

Other major causes were coming into contact with objects, leading to 10.9 of injuries, and exposure to fire products, leading to 9.7 percent. In this instance, the term "cause" refers to the initial circumstance leading to the injury. Fire department vehicle collisions In 2012, an estimated 14,300 collisions involved fire department emergency vehicles that were responding to, or returning from, incidents. To put this number in perspective, fire departments responded to more than 31.8 million incidents last year, so that the number of collisions represents about one-tenth of 1 percent of total responses. However, they resulted in 725 firefighter injuries, or 1 percent of all firefighter injuries during 2012. Another 750 collisions involved firefighters' own vehicles, which they were driving to or from incidents. These collisions resulted in an estimated 70 injuries. Average fires and fireground injuries per department by population and region protected NFPA also examined the average number of fires and fireground injuries per department by population of community protected in 2012. These tabulations show that the number of fires a fire department responds to is directly related to the size of the population it protects and that the number of fireground injuries the department incurs is directly related to its exposure to fire and to the number of fires it attends. This second point is clearly demonstrated when we examine the range of the statistic, which ran the gamut from a high of 87.1 for departments that protect communities of 1,000,000 or more to a low of 0.2 for departments that protect communities of fewer than 2,500. A useful way to look at firefighter injury experience and to obtain a reading on the relative risk that departments face is to examine the number of fireground injuries that occur for every 100 fires a fire department attends. This takes into account relative fire experience and allows more direct comparison among departments protecting communities of different sizes. In 2012, the overall range of rates varied from a high of 3.3 for fire departments that protect communities of 250,000 to 999,999 residents to a low of 1.1 for departments that protect communities of 5,000 to 9,999. Thus, the wide range noted in average fireground injuries by the size of the population a department protects narrows when relative fire experience is taken into account. The overall injury rate for departments protecting communities with a population of 50,000 or more was 2.4 injuries per 100 fires, 71 percent higher than the injury rate for departments protecting communities of fewer than 50,000 residents. We also examined the risk of fireground injury per 100 firefighters by size of community protected. Larger departments generally had the highest rates, with departments protecting communities of 250,000 to 499,999 having the highest rate of 8.3 injuries per 100 firefighters. As community size decreases, the rate drops quite steadily to a low of 0.8 for departments protecting less than 2,500 people. Nonfire Emergency A 27-year-old firefighter with two years' experience suffered a major head injury when he tried to inflate a raft to help the local animal control officer rescue a dog stuck in a creek. The victim, who was filling the raft using SCBA cylinders, had just attached a second cylinder and pressurized the fill valve to complete inflation when the cylinder detached from the coupling and went airborne, hitting the victim in the head. The firefighter, who was not wearing any protective clothing, was knocked unconscious and suffered a fractured skull. He was hospitalized for 10 days and returned to firefighting activities nearly five months later. The department indicated that he was unfamiliar with the equipment and unaware of the hazards associated with the inflation process. Struck by vehicle A 55-year-old firefighter suffered head and hip injuries when he was struck by a car at the scene of a vehicle crash. Just before 2 a.m., the fire department was dispatched to a vehicle crash on the highway. When firefighters arrived on the scene, they found an overturned tractor trailer from which diesel fuel had spilled. The firefighters helped the sheriff's department set up a cone barricade behind which they stationed a fire department staff vehicle and a sheriff's cruiser with emergency lights flashing to close the highway so the hazmat team and a tow company could remove the tractor trailer. The victim, who was wearing a reflective traffic vest, and a sheriff's deputy were standing near the two cars at approximately 5 a.m. when they saw a speeding minivan coming through the cone barricade toward the two emergency vehicles. The minivan pushed the fire department staff car into the firefighter, who landed on the hood of the van, riding on it approximately 100 feet (30 meters) before he fell to the ground. The sheriff's deputy immediately notified EMS and the fire department, which transported the victim to the nearest trauma center. The firefighter, a 15-year veteran of the department, was unable to perform firefighting activities for more than four months. He is no longer allowed to perform interior firefighting due to limited range of motion and vertigo. Brush Fire A 26-year-old firefighter with seven years' experience was hit in the head by a branch while operating NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 NFPA JOURNAL 63

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NFPA Journal - November/December 2013