Injuries Occurring During Wellness/Fitness Activities

Everyone knows that you’ve got to stay healthy to do your jobs, and that your departments’ Wellness/Fitness programs help you do this.  The TCFP even requires your departments have an SOP for these programs.  And, Courage to be Safe’s Initiative #6:  Medical and Physical Fitness also places great emphasis on these types of programs.  Unfortunately, we’ve had a number of injuries occurring during Wellness/Fitness activities reported to us. 

Injuries occurring during Wellness/Fitness activities are the 5^th most common types of injuries reported to our FIDO system.  As you can see below, the body parts being injured during these activities are most commonly knees, backs, ankles and shoulders.  Strains &Sprains are the most common types of injuries occurring during Wellness/Fitness activities.

Wellness/Fitness injuries by body part injured - click to enlarge

Wellness/Fitness injuries by type - click to enlarge

The good news is that 68% of these injuries are minor, which means that the injured firefighters are missing less than one full duty period.  31%, though, are serious and have lost more time at work. 

Check out some examples of injuries occurring during Wellness/Fitness activities:

“While working out the firefighter slipped on the treadmill and sustained abrasions on the knees and right ankle.”

“After playing basketball for about an hour, the firefighter had some pain in low back that still was there the next morning.”

“Firefighter was exercising on treadmill when he experienced chest pains.”

“Firefighter was working out with weights at station and injured right shoulder.”

“During physical fitness, member was crushed finger between dumbbell weight and storage rack.”

“Employee was playing basketball as part of fitness when he fractured right ankle.”

In the coming month, we’ll focus our blog posts on how exercising can be harmful, and how you can exercise for health without injury.  Stay tuned here to learn more.