Preventing Exposures

There were 811 exposures submitted to the Texas Commission on Fire Protection between February 1, 2014 and February 1, 2015. Of these exposures, 548 of them occurred while providing EMS care. While it can be difficult to prevent some exposures, there are steps that can be taken to prevent or minimize the effect of as many as possible.

·                           1) Be sure to wear all appropriate PPE required for the task at hand as stated by the department and TCFP’s requirements.

                              2) Follow departmental procedures for decontamination and clean up.

·                            3) Be aware of your surroundings and the potential hazards it may hold so that you may act accordingly.

Exposures by Activity - click to enlarge

Type of Exposure - click to enlarge

Finalizing 2014 Injury Reports

Now that 2014 has ended, it’s officially time to finalize those injury reports. We ask that this be done no later than January 31, 2015. Finalizing department injury reports is easy to do once you’ve logged into the fire department’s Department Management FIDO account.

The first thing to do after logging in is to click on the Injuries tab. This will bring up a list of other tabs, below it, on the Injury Reporting screen.

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To report a previously unreported injury that occurred in 2014, click on the Report an Injury tab and follow the on-screen prompts. Be sure to check “yes” in the confirmation box at the bottom before submitting.

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To report “No Injuries” for any months in 2014, click on the Report No Injuries tab then choose the year and each month for which you need to file a “No injury” report.

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We also ask that you update any currently open injuries that have previously been reported during 2014. To do this, click on the List of Reported Injuries tab. From there, you can filter to find the injury that you are looking for and you can view, append, or edit the report using the tabs to the right of said report.

Note: If an edit is made to a report, we ask that you also provide a quick append letting us know what has been changed. We are not notified if changes are made to existing reports.

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If you have any questions or issues finalizing or filing your department’s injury reports, feel free to give us a call at (512) 936-3831 or send an email to injuries@tcfp.texas.gov.

Heart Disease and Fire Fighting

The leading killer of on-duty fire fighters is heart disease. One big reason for this is the stress related to the job, and heart disease does not only affect the elderly. Factors that can contribute to heart disease are lack of sleep or poor sleep habits, abdominal fat, traumatic stresses, physically demanding activities, and breathing toxic fumes. With more than 1 million people estimated to suffer a heart attack within the next year in the U.S. alone, here are some tips from FireEngineering.com to help prevent yourself from becoming one of them:

1.  Get an annual physical with a complete blood panel.
2.  Lower testosterone levels have been shown to be an independent risk factor for worse outcomes among men and women with heart failure. Low “T” also has been associated with decreased survival for men with coronary artery disease.
3.  Forget about diets and low fat! Eat a more healthful diet. There is no magic pill! (For more about the relation between diet and heart disease, click here.)
4.  Exercise, exercise, exercise. 30 minutes of aerobic activity is associated with a 70 percent reduction in heart attack risk over a year.
5.  Stay happy; be optimistic. It could save your life.

Between December 1, 2013 and December 1, 2014, there were 42 injuries related to cardiac symptoms/cardiac arrest reported to the commission. With better awareness, hopefully that number could be significantly lower next year and in the future. Keep up the good work, and take care of yourselves.