firefighters

Before Patrick Morrison worked for the International Association of Fire Fighters, he was a firefighter himself. He’s experienced the horrifying and profoundly saddening events that first responders see every day. And like many other firefighters, he turned to alcohol to deal with the accumulating mental trauma. Fortunately, Morrison got help and considers himself “in recovery” today. But many firefighters don’t. In fact, an August 2016 IAFF report noted that even though firefighters experience a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) rate that’s similar to soldiers returning from combat, many…

Today, Maine’s legislature held a hearing on the Toxic Chemicals in the Workplace Act, a proposal to require employers to identify harmful chemicals in the workplace and replace them with safer alternatives. It’s the perfect example of state action on behalf of worker safety and exactly the kind of measure that might no longer be possible under two congressional proposals aimed at overhauling the federal Toxic Substances Control Act. As Congress considers a number of legislative proposals to reform the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) — a law that hasn’t been updated since its passage…

In the span of just a couple years, five of Heather Buren’s colleagues at the San Francisco Fire Department were diagnosed with breast cancer. At first, Buren thought the diagnoses were part of the unfortunate toll that comes with age. Still, something felt amiss — “it just felt so disproportionate to me,” she said. Around the same time, Buren helped a good friend and mentor within the department as she underwent a double mastectomy. Buren said it was at that moment that she decided to take decisive action. “(The cancer) just brought her to her knees,” she told me. “Now she’s good and back in…

Over the course of three days, three miners were killed on the job in West Virginia, Illinois, and Wyoming. Ken Ward Jr. describes their deaths in the Charleston Gazette: In the recent incidents, 62-year-old Roger R. King of Moundsville was killed Friday when he was hit in the head by part of a chain being used during a longwall machine move at CONSOL Energy's McElroy Mine in Marshall County. On Saturday, a miner at Alliance Coal's Pattiki Mine in White County, Ill., was killed when an underground cart rolled over and he was pinned underneath it. Local media identified the miner as Robert…

It's been four months since Captain Bill Dowling responded with his fire station 68 crew to a multi-alarm blaze at the Southwest Inn in Houston.  About 150 firefighters arrived on the scene to battle the rapidly-moving fire which started in a restaurant attached to the hotel.  Disaster struck, and the May 31, 2013 incident stands as the Houston Fire Department's worst loss of life in its history. Capt. Dowling and other firefighters from his unit were inside the building when its tile roof collapsed.  Firefighters Robert Bebee, 41, Robert Garner, 29, Matthew Renaud, 35, and Anne Sullivan, 24…

A memorial service honoring the 19 firefighters killed in the Yarnell Hill, AZ wildfire will be held today at Tim's Toyota Center in Prescott Valley, AZ.  Forty eight hours earlier, an honor guard escorted 19 hearses carrying members of the 20-person Granite Mountain Hotshots on a 125-mile route from Phoenix to Prescott.  This string of somber ceremonies started Monday, July 1 when a crew of 12 firefighters were permitted on the mountain to remove the firefighters' bodies. In "It's something you never want to see again,"  The (Arizona) Republic's Kristina Goetz describes a brotherhood of…

[Updated below 7/1/2013] A public memorial service will be held tomorrow at Houston's Reliant Stadium to honor the city's four firefighters who died on-the-job on May 31.   About 150 firefighters responded to tackle the blaze at the Southwest Inn, a two-story motel adjacent to the I-59 freeway in Houston.  Firefighters Robert Bebee, 41, Robert Garner, 29, Matthew Renaud, 35, and Anne Sullivan, 24 were battling the fire when a portion of the building collapsed and they were trapped.  Another 12 firefighters were injured in the call, and three of them remain hospitalized. It's been a deadly and…

This week is Workers' Memorial Week, when we remember the thousands of men and women who die on the job each year and work to prevent future deaths by improving workplace health and safety. Workers' Memorial Day is recognized worldwide on April 28, and more than a dozen US communities are holding local Workers' Memorial Week events. In the US, nearly 5,000 workers are killed on the job each year and, as the AFL-CIO notes in its annual Death on the Job report, an estimated 50,000 die from occupational diseases. This week begins in the shadow of a tragedy in Texas, where a massive fire and…

I am not in charge of SciWo's Storytime. Sure, it might look like I'm the one reading the books and operating the video camera, but Minnow exerts the ultimate executive authority as editor-in-chief. Some weeks no videos whatsoever are allowed to be made, some weeks she's content to let me pick the book, and some weeks she is quite happy to make a whole string of videos, so long as she chooses the content. With that proviso, Minnow presents this week's edition of SciWo's Storytime featuring the book Little Squire the Fire Engine by Catherine Kenworthy and illustrated by Nina Barbaresi. Now…