The USFA has released the preliminary report on 2008 line of duty deaths for firefighters. The numbers and causes are fairly similar to recent years. Many of the causes of death are easily preventable with things like good eating and exercise habits, not smoking, and seat belt use. Unfortunately, as in past years exertion related causes (stroke and heart attack) are the leading cause of death. This cause can be best impacted by a multitude of prevention efforts and lifestyle changes. Emergency responders, volunteer, paid on-call, or full-time reflect the health and wellness of the populations we serve.

I believe it is important to understand the causes of death injury and then pro-actively make changes that improve your own safety, the safety of those you respond with, and the safety of those around you.

There is not an a federally organized effort, like the USFA report, that tracks fatalities of EMTs in the line of duty. The National EMS Memorial Services maintains a registry of death notices.

Seat belt use is one easy step to minimize the risk to vehicle passengers during a collision. Yesterday I asked my department’s safety committee to review the National Seat Belt Safety Pledge and consider adoption. Has your department signed the pledge?

What are you doing to promote safety, health, and wellness in your emergency response organization?

Related posts:

1. USFA Firefighter Fatality Notification
2. NFPA Report on 2007 Firefighter Fatalities
3. Why EPS Supports the National EMS Memorial Bike Ride

Tags: Heart Attack, Line of Duty Death, LODD, National EMS Memorial Service, National Seat Belt Pledge, Stroke, USFA

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at 2:27 pm and is filed under News & Events, Tools, Reviews, & Other Neat Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.