firefighters

First-of-its kind health center helps firefighters struggling with PTSD, addiction

kkrisberg — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 16:30:20 +0000

First-of-its kind health center helps firefighters struggling with PTSD, addiction

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 fire departments don’t have the behavioral health services necessary to address the problem. Research has found that up to one-fifth of fire fighters and paramedics have PTSD. This study found in a survey of firefighters that nearly half had thought about suicide and nearly one-fifth had suicide plans.

IAFF hopes to help fill that mental health service gap with a new behavioral health center designed by and for firefighters. On March 5, the IAFF Center of Excellence for Behavioral Health Treatment and Recovery officially opened its doors in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. The one-of-a-kind treatment facility was specifically created to help firefighters struggling with addiction and other behavioral health conditions, including PTSD and depression, and to exclusively serve the IAFF’s more than 303,000 members. Opening week, staff welcomed the first seven patients to the center, where active and retired firefighters can stay for more than a month of inpatient treatment.

“This has become an overriding priority for IAFF,” said Morrison, assistant to the general president for health and safety at IAFF. “If you had talked to me just five years ago, I would’ve said there wasn’t really a willingness to talk about this problem. But it’s reached a pinnacle — people are realizing that we’re all in this together and we need to find a way to address it.”

The center isn’t IAFF’s first effort on the behavioral health front. The labor union has been involved in a number of efforts to increase capacity on the issue, such as training firefighters to recognize the signs of mental crisis in their peers and offer help. However, Morrison said the magnitude of the problem came into even clearer focus in January 2015, when the IAFF’s magazine published a cover story about PTSD and the stigma that prevents firefighters from seeking help. He said reader reaction was overwhelming — “the phones rang off the hook” with firefighters asking where to find services.

“They were calling in droves with the realization that they were struggling too,” he told me.

Not long after, IAFF was approached by Advanced Recovery Systems (ARS), a behavioral health care management company, about a new facility it was opening in Upper Marlboro. ARS proposed making the facility exclusively for firefighters. IAFF said yes, as long as the center addressed both addiction and PTSD.

“That was the concept,” Morrison said. “We wanted to do it, but it had to focus on PTSD with co-occurring addiction.”

On the center’s opening day in March, more than 300 firefighters showed up in support. Everything about the 64-bed facility was built with firefighters in mind, said Abby Morris, a psychiatrist and medical director of the ARS/IAFF behavioral health center. The dorm areas are referred to as station houses, patients eat together at a long table in the kitchen like they would at work, and every morning begins with chores just like it would at the firehouse.

On the flip side, medical staff from the center were brought to IAFF’s training facility and put through the same exercises a firefighter would tackle — doing CPR, cutting a car open — to help them understand the stress of the job.

“Firefighters have a very unique culture,” said Morris, who worked as a medical consultant for the Montgomery County, Maryland, SWAT team. “They work as a team, it’s like a brotherhood. They spend days away from their families — they’re home away from home is the firehouse. …We wanted them to feel at ease (at the center).”

The center has three tracks, she said: one for addiction only, another on PTSD, depression and anxiety, and a third that addresses dual diagnoses. When I talked with Morris shortly after the center opened, she said there had been a lot of interest from firefighters dealing specifically with PTSD. The center’s aftercare goal is to use telemedicine to follow up with patients for up to 18 months after discharge as well as connect them with outpatient services where they live. Morris said everyone will leave with an outpatient plan.

Some firefighters will come to the center of their own will, others at the insistence of their employers, but Morris said a huge component of the center’s work will be safely returning firefighters to the job.

“We need to build resilience,” she said. “We want to give them the skills to manage what they have to face. These are people who have multiple layers of trauma and they have to go back into traumatic environments. So (resilience) is a huge part of our programs.”

Morris went on to say: “I want to make sure every person who comes here is treated as a human being first. The came in this world as human beings and they’ll leave as human beings and I want to make sure that part isn’t lost within their identity as a firefighter.”

Morrison at IAFF said the center will engage in research and training as well, with an ultimate goal of disseminating best practices on dealing with issues like PTSD and resiliency. He described the center as a “beta test” — in other words, if the center does result in better outcomes for firefighter health and well-being, it could prove a model for additional centers around the country.

Both Morrison and Morris acknowledged that while states and municipalities often provide for mental health services for firefighters, it’s simply not enough to meet current needs.

“This center can be a catalyst,” Morrison said. “If we do this right, we can save jobs, save families — we can save firefighters.”

For more on the new center, visit www.iaffrecoverycenter.com.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for 15 years.

kkrisberg Tue, 03/28/2017 - 12:30

Worker health and chemical safety reform: ‘What we’re looking for is to first do no harm’

kkrisberg — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 16:05:44 +0000

Worker health and chemical safety reform: ‘What we’re looking for is to first do no harm’

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 and is often described as woefully inadequate in protecting public health — worker health and safety advocates are speaking up and keeping careful watch. Reforming TSCA and strengthening the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to restrict and ban dangerous chemicals is important for the health of all Americans, but workers could especially benefit. The metaphor of workers as society’s “canary in the coal mine” when it comes to chemical safety may be overused, but it’s still true. Occupational health and safety history is littered with examples of chemical dangers and other hazards only being noticed after workers get sick or die. And so for workers, many of who face direct exposure to chemicals in concentrated forms and on a regular, even daily, basis, TSCA reform is particularly significant.

According to OSHA, U.S. workers experience more than 190,000 illnesses and 50,000 deaths each year related to chemical exposures, which have been tied to cancers as well as lung, kidney, skin, heart, stomach, brain, nerve and reproductive diseases.

“We want EPA to specifically pay attention to worker health,” said Kevin O’Connor, director of governmental affairs and public policy at the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), which represents about 86 percent of the country’s professional firefighters. “What we’re looking for is to first do no harm.”

Currently, two TSCA reform bills have been introduced in Congress — the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, known as S. 697, introduced by Sens. David Vitter, R-La., and Tom Udall, D-N.M., and the Alan Reinstein and Trevor Schaefer Toxic Chemical Protection Act, S. 725, introduced by Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Ed Markey, D-Mass. (We wrote about both bills and their differences here.) Then earlier this month, Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., released a draft TSCA reform proposal. Like the Vitter-Udall bill, the Shimkus proposal would significantly restrict and pre-empt state action on chemical safety — it’s a major sticking point for worker health and safety organizations. (The U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works is scheduled to mark up the Vitter-Udall bill on April 28. While some revisions have been made, advocates say it's not nearly enough to protect people's health — learn why in this letter from the Center for Environmental Health.)

According to the Center for Effective Government, the Shimkus bill could override hundreds of state chemical safety actions. Specifically, if EPA ruled that a chemical doesn’t present an “unreasonable risk,” the Shimkus bill would prohibit states from taking action on that chemical, even if the state had previously determined the chemical was a threat to people’s health or if the state is home to a particularly vulnerable population. If EPA did rule a chemical unsafe, states could only enact a restriction identical to the federal finding and no stricter. In addition, the Shimkus bill would pre-empt state action in a scenario in which EPA only assessed a chemical’s risk in a certain setting. For instance, if EPA studied a particular chemical in furniture, a state couldn’t take action on that same chemical as it’s used in children’s products.

The Vitter-Udall bill has similarly restrictive language when it comes to state authority. For example, that bill would ban states from regulating any chemical that EPA has designated as “high priority” and for which the agency has begun a safety review, even though that review could take seven years or longer. Vitter-Udall would also block states from co-enforcing EPA chemical safety restrictions — in other words, states and their residents would have to fully depend on EPA and its already strained budget to enforce chemical safety findings instead of allowing states to serve as partners in protecting people’s health. In contrast, the Boxer-Markey bill does not pre-empt state action on chemical safety.

In a letter on TSCA reform to leaders in the Senate, the AFL-CIO, which represents 12.5 million working Americans, writes:

Much of the progress that has been made in protecting the public and workers from exposures to toxic chemicals has resulted from state action. States have been at the forefront of identifying chemical hazards, providing warnings and restricting the use of toxic chemicals. State policies and actions have promoted the use of less hazardous substances, the most effective means to limit exposures. The states’ ability to take action in the future is critical for continued progress and protection of the public and workers.

Unfortunately, the Vitter-Udall and Shimkus bills jeopardize the ability to act locally on behalf of worker health and safety.

'TSCA reform can keep workers from getting sick if it’s done right'

At IAFF, O’Connor told me the firefighters association opposes any federal effort to ban state action on chemical safety, pointing to occupational exposure to flame retardants as a prime example of how local action is protecting firefighter health.

A growing body of evidence finds that firefighters are being exposed to dangerous carcinogens through the burning of household products containing chemical flame retardants. For example, this study found that firefighters have much higher levels of flame retardant chemicals in their blood than the general population. In fact, IAFF recently signed a petition calling on the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission to ban children’s products, furniture, mattresses and electronics casings that contain flame retardants within the chemical class known as organohalogens, which have been linked to cancer, learning deficits, decreased IQ in children and lowered immunity.

To protect their members against the dangerous chemicals, IAFF and its affiliates often look to local officials for help and today, states across the nation have adopted or are considering policies that restrict and regulate chemical flame retardants. For example, last year, the California Professional Firefighters — an affiliate of IAFF — advocated for and celebrated the passage of a state law requiring labels on furniture that declare whether the products contain chemical flame retardants.

O’Connor said any TSCA reform that prohibits states from acting on chemical safety would have a “chilling effect” on advocacy on behalf of firefighter health and safety. According to an IAFF database of work-related firefighter deaths, 56 percent are due to occupational cancers.

“If we put all of our eggs in the basket of the federal government, quite frankly, we’re not sure we’re protecting the best interest of our members,” he told me. “We want to make sure that a weak federal law does not pre-empt strong action on the part of states.”

At United Steelworkers (USW), the largest industrial union in North America with 850,000 members in the U.S. and Canada, workers have a huge stake in stronger chemical safety laws and the outcome of any TSCA reform. USW represents a majority of unionized chemical workers, such as those who make plastics, fertilizers, pesticides, synthetic rubbers, paints and solvents. As a co-founder of the BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of labor and environmental organizations, USW has developed a set of principles for any TSCA reform, which includes giving EPA the authority to protect those most vulnerable to chemical safety risks, such as workers. Anna Fendley, the union’s legislative representative, told me USW is not supporting the Vitter-Udall bill in its current form, citing its state pre-emption provisions as a major problem. (Fendley also highlighted original language in the Vitter-Udall bill that would have weakened EPA’s ability to ensure that imported products don’t contain restricted chemicals; however, that language, as of late April, had been removed.)

“Ultimately, we want a federal system that works and we want the states to keep their ability to regulate safety as well,” Fendley told me. “TSCA reform can keep workers from getting sick if it’s done right.”

Fendley added that modernizing EPA’s capacity to assess chemical safety and pathways of exposure could also inform new risk reduction strategies for workers, especially for industrial processes in which there are no safer chemical alternatives.

“We’ve been working on this for many years and we really hoped that this could be the year for reform, but we’re not going to support a bill that doesn’t fix the problem,” she told me. “Workers deserve to go home from work the same way they went in — not sick and not hurt.”

Like the Vitter-Udall bill, the Shimkus proposal does not adequately define what it means for a chemical to be safe, said Charlotte Brody, vice president for occupational and public health initiatives at the BlueGreen Alliance. She told me: “The biggest thing that TSCA reform could do for workers is to ask and answer the question: Is it safe? And the Shimkus bill doesn't yet give EPA the questions to answer that would protect the health of workers or anybody else.”

Under current TSCA rules, EPA must find that a chemical presents an “unreasonable risk” to people’s health or the environment, and that assessment must also consider the benefits of the chemical in question, the availability of alternatives and the costs of restricting the chemical. The Shimkus bill would no longer require EPA to consider costs and other non-risk factors when assessing risk and would prohibit the agency from finding no unreasonable risk even if the chemical in question only presents a risk to certain groups, such as workers. But, the Shimkus draft still retains the “unreasonable risk” standard and it’s ambiguous as to how that standard would be interpreted or how cost would shape EPA’s authority to act on a finding of harm. For example, in testifying on the Shimkus draft, Andy Igrejas, director of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, said:

While this may seem like a fine point, it is fundamental. Stakeholders broadly agree on a risk-based system for TSCA reform. In such a system, cost considerations should be reserved for the question of how to mitigate the risk, not whether to mitigate it. As it stands, we believe the draft would allow a major risk — such as a chemical that causes cancer or birth defects — to remain unmitigated if it was deemed too expensive to do so. That is a very different outcome than mitigating the risk in a cost-effective way.

“(The Shimkus language) leaves EPA open to yet another decade of arguing what the regulations should be,” Brody told me. “What you want in (TSCA reform) is a crisp definition. Unless there’s a crisp definition, it’s not a bill you can support — it’s open to manipulation, it’s open to years of lawsuits and it’s not better than the broken law we have now.”

Today, Brody is in Maine for a public hearing on a state bill, the Toxic Chemicals in the Workplace Act. If signed into law, the bill would, among other measures, direct the state Department of Labor to develop criteria for identifying toxic chemicals and require certain employers to develop and implement alternative chemical work plans. The bill isn’t only an example of how states are stepping up to protect workers — it’s also an example of the kind of localized action and support that workers stand to lose as federal TSCA reform moves forward.

“The default is that people believe that everything on a store shelf has been reviewed for safety by some government agency,” Brody said. “They think the government makes sure there aren't dangerous products on the shelf. And it’s great that that’s the government people want — we want that too. But that’s not what we have, so we have to organize until it’s true.”

Click here to read the AFL-CIO’s full letter on TSCA reform. For more on TSCA reform, visit the Center for Environmental Health.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for more than a decade.

kkrisberg Mon, 04/27/2015 - 12:05

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chemicals policy

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occupational fatalities

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San Francisco women firefighters take part in first study on firefighting exposures and breast cancer

kkrisberg — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 16:53:24 +0000

San Francisco women firefighters take part in first study on firefighting exposures and breast cancer

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 the field. But in that moment when I saw this happening to her, I thought, ‘What’s going on? These are the fittest, strongest, healthiest women I know. What’s happening?’”

The experience compelled Buren to reach out to the San Francisco Firefighters Cancer Prevention Foundation, which in 2012, partnered with United Fire Service Women and a number of environmental health and cancer advocates to investigate growing concerns about premenopausal breast cancer cases within the fire department. The result was the grant-funded Women Firefighter Biomonitoring Collaborative Study, the first study of its kind to measure chemical exposures, including those chemicals linked to breast cancer, among women firefighters.

“My goal is to find out what’s going on and then, hopefully, start to change our standard operating procedure,” said Buren, one of four principal investigators on the study, a study participant and a lieutenant within the San Francisco Fire Department. “I’ve been a firefighter for 18 years and there’s things we can control and there’s so much we can’t control. I can’t choose whether or not I fight a fire, but there may be ways we can better protect ourselves from potential exposures.”

The San Francisco Fire Department is particularly well suited for this type of study, as it’s home to the largest number of women firefighters — about 225 — in the nation. Currently, the collaborative is in the midst of collecting blood and urine samples as well as gathering health and behavioral information from 80 San Francisco women firefighters and 80 city office workers, who will serve as the study’s control group. Buren said the collaborative hopes to finish the collections by Christmas, after which researchers will begin analyzing the samples. Previous research from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has found that overall, firefighters tend to experience higher rates of certain cancers, including a particularly high rate of mesothelioma; however, relatively few women were included in the study.

Ruthann Rudel, a principal investigator on the Women Firefighter Biomonitoring Collaborative Study and research director at the Silent Spring Institute, said researchers will be examining the biological samples for three specific classes of chemicals. The first are flame retardants, which firefighters are exposed to via firefighting equipment and in the burning of everyday household items that contain the chemicals. The second are perfluorinated chemicals, also known as PFCs, which are used to make products more resistant to stains and water and are commonly found in sofas, mattresses, carpets and in firefighting materials. The third are products of combustion and diesel exhaust. (Buren noted that a firefighter can be stationed next to a fire truck exhaust for hours at a time as she or he pumps water onto a fire.) Rudel said that there is some evidence from animal studies that all three classes of chemicals may be contributors to mammary gland tumors.

As well as testing for those three groups of chemicals, Rudel said scientists will also use an innovative chemical analysis method known as Time of Flight to compare the firefighter and control group samples in an attempt to identify additional chemical exposures. Lastly, scientists will study the biological samples for early markers of a chemical exposure effect, such as changes in hormone levels.

“This study won’t tell us if these exposures caused breast cancer, but that there’s been an exposure to potential or likely carcinogens,” Rudel told me. “The study will tell us what chemicals are differentially exposed and that can give us clues as to how to reduce those exposures. …But I also don’t think we need to wait (to take protective action). We have a list of chemicals, we know they’re being used, we know women are exposed and we know they are likely breast carcinogens.”

Rudel noted that historically, most of what we understand about known human carcinogens came from the study of worker populations — “workers have been and continue to be guinea pigs in that way. That’s not a good thing, it’s just what happens,” she told me. And in fact, the women firefighters study could help pave the way for other groups of women workers to come forward with their own occupational exposure concerns.

“What’s so unique about this study is that although (the women firefighters) have support from the firefighter union and department, it’s the firefighters themselves who are making this study possible,” Rudel said.

So, at what point should the research start to shape policy? Nancy Buermeyer, policy implications advisor to the Women Firefighter Biomonitoring Collaborative Study and a senior policy strategist at the San Francisco-based Breast Cancer Fund, said the study results could contribute to a number of advocacy efforts, such as those aimed at better protecting firefighter health as well as more long-term activities aimed at reforming federal chemical regulations. Specifically, Buermeyer noted that the federal Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, which provides the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with some authority to require the reporting and testing of certain chemicals, is in desperate need of reform. Though advocates such as Buermeyer face a serious uphill battle and a very rich opponent.

“The chemical industry is extremely well resourced,” she told me. “But that’s why studies like this are so important — because the only thing that combats that kind of (industry) money is public outrage. …Being able to demonstrate with solid, strong evidence the levels of carcinogens in a population like firefighters is going to have a big impact on the public. Firefighters are extremely well respected and loved by the public and they can bring awareness to this issue in general.”

Buermeyer added that considering the current dearth of research on women and occupational exposures, she hopes the firefighter study will jumpstart additional research on work-related threats to women’s health. Buren also hopes the study will spur discussions on what can be done to better protect women and all firefighters’ health — “this is the beginning of something locally that will hopefully go globally,” she said.

During my conversation with Buren, she talked at length about her love for firefighting — “it’s a wonderful job, I love it. There’s times I can’t believe how lucky I am,” she said. As a firefighter, Buren said, you don’t stop to think about your fear, you just do your job. But cancer is a different story.

“For firefighters, cancer is really hard to look at and talk about, but we can’t not talk about it,” she said. “There is a fear. I don’t want it to be me and I don’t want it to keep happening to (my co-workers). We need to face it.”

To learn more about the Women Firefighter Biomonitoring Collaborative Study, visit http://womenfirefighterstudy.com.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for more than a decade.

kkrisberg Fri, 11/07/2014 - 11:53

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Occupational Health News Roundup

lborkowski — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 15:47:04 +0000

Occupational Health News Roundup

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 Smith, 47, of Norris City, Ill.

And on Sunday, a third miner was killed when his bulldozer went over a 150-foot highwall at MidAmerican Energy's Bridger Mine in Sweetwater County, Wyo. SNL Financial News identified that miner as Chris Stassinos, who had worked at the operation for two years.

Ward notes that during the federal government shutdown, the Mine Safety and Health Administration's contingency plan called for furloughing 1,400 of its 2,355 employees and that the agency is conducting only "targeted inspections" of "high-hazard" mines.

In a follow-up article, Ward quotes United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts, who warned "the government's watchdog isn't watching," and Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia), who expressed "deep frustration about the misguided government shutdown that has furloughed MSHA inspectors and prevented them from conducting the regular inspections that make sure coal companies are operating their mines as safely as possible."

In other news:

EHS Today and National Council on Occupational Safety and Health: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has fined the parent company of the West Fertilizer Company $118,300 for 24 violations. The explosion and fire at the Texas plant killed 15 workers. National COSH notes that the government shutdown forced the US Chemical Safety Board to halt its investigation of the disaster, and urges Congress to give the CSB enforcement ability.

Dallas Morning News: Interviews with nearly a dozen firefighters and medical personnel about the fertilizer-plant explosion and fire in West, Texas reveal "the risks they faced and the horrors they experienced that night."

Huffington Post: Many adults are exposed to dangerous levels of lead on the job, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's exposure limit hasn't been tightened even as research has shown health risks from lower levels.

Kennebec Journal (Maine): Research shows firefighters' exposure to toxic chemicals increases their cancer risk. A 15-year study following Maine firefighters will analyze blood levels of various chemicals and aim to identify those that affect cancer development.

Reuters: A fire in a garment factory in Gazipur, Bangladesh, killed nine workers and injured 50.

lborkowski Thu, 10/10/2013 - 11:47

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Confined Space @ TPH

Occup Health News Roundup

Occupational Health & Safety

Houston firefighter's recovery marks fourth month, May blaze killed four in his crew

cmonforton — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 10:00:27 +0000

Houston firefighter's recovery marks fourth month, May blaze killed four in his crew

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 were killed. Captain Dowling was trapped in the rubble and smoke, was later rescued, but suffered very serious injuries.

Readers of The Pump Handle are familiar with our posts describing work-related deaths. When these four Houston firefighters died on the job, I was quick to write about it. I did so in the context of the 33 other firefighters who also lost their lives in the line of duty this year.

William Dowling's case reminds me, however, that serious work-related injuries, not just deaths, can be devastating. We may read about the deaths, but they are just the tip of the iceberg. Tens of thousands of U.S. workers suffer horrendous and disabling injuries on-the-job. Recovery and rehabilitation from these injuries is a painful and arduous process, both for the individual and for their families.

Capt. Dowling's long road to recovery continues. In the sixteen weeks since the deadly incident, he has already endured:

Seven weeks in the hospital's intensive care unit;
Surgeries to remove parts of both his legs;
Dialysis (until mid-September) to aid his damaged kidneys;
Surgeries to control internal bleeding;
Serious risk of infections;
A tracheotomy, breathing tube, and feeding tube;
Surgeries to remove dead tissue from his severe burn wound;
Blood transfusions;
Skin grafts;
Serious brain injury; and
Seizure-like episodes.

On August 22, Captain Dowling was transferred to The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research (TIRR). (The top-notch facility's most famous graduate is probably former congresswoman Gabriel Giffords.)

Jacki Dowling has chronicled the ups and downs of her husband's recovery on Facebook and Caring Bridge. She's relocated her family to an apartment---and enrolled her children in new schools---to be closer to TIRR. Throughout this ordeal, his wife Jacki, three school age children and their extended family have stayed close by his side.

cmonforton Thu, 10/03/2013 - 06:00

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Occupational Health & Safety

Ceremonies honor the 19 fallen firefighters, wisdom of battling wildfires questioned

cmonforton — Tue, 09 Jul 2013 10:54:42 +0000

Ceremonies honor the 19 fallen firefighters, wisdom of battling wildfires questioned

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 firefighters honoring their own.

“'Anytime there’s a tragedy, a fatal tragedy, it’s tradition that,'” [Prescott firefighter] Conrad Jackson said, his voice breaking, 'your own family comes and gets you. I don’t want strangers going in and getting them out of there. I want to be the one that gets to go in there and get them out of there. It’s a horrific honor to go in and do that.'”

Goetz describes the solemn scene:

"After the burnover, a bulldozer had plowed a path half a mile up the hillside, the fresh desert earth stark against the blackened hill. On Monday morning, that track led the three pickups to within about 30 feet of the fire crew. The recovery crew, still in their yellow fire gear and hard hats, emerged from the trucks and approached the scene. Some walked up to each man to say a silent prayer — or goodbye.

...Prescott Fire Department Wildland Division Chief Darrell Willis called the 12 together in a circle. They listened as he recited the 23rd Psalm. ...Two firefighters walked up to the body bags and unfurled American flags that had been brought to the scene. ...Then, eight firefighters, four on either side, stood in salute at the back of each truck as the other four men carried their bodies.

“'It’s not something you practice,' Jackson said. 'It’s definitely not something you ever want to have to do.'"

The recovery team saw the tools the Hotshots were using to dig a fireline---axes with spade heads---along with water bottles and burned chainsaws. One team member told Goetz the land looked like it had been "nuked."

I've been thinking about the wisdom of trying to fight a massive fire that is called "wild." Wildfires by definition are fast moving with unpredictable behavior. Should firefighters be dispatched to battle such blazes?

Crystal Kolden, PhD, a fire ecologist at the University of Idaho says no, and thinks the Granite Mountain Hotshots should never have been directed to do so. Kolden is a former U.S. Forest Service firefighter. In a Washington Post article, "Arizona fire deaths prove no one should die for a house," Kolden explains that the town of Yarnell had already been evacuated. The firefighters died trying to save houses, not lives. She writes:

"Homeowners who live in wildfire-prone areas shouldn’t expect their highly flammable property to be rescued during extreme fires. ...In parts of the country prone to earthquakes and flooding, owners and developers must purchase expensive hazard insurance. New construction often must meet specialized codes designed to mitigate potential catastrophe, such as requirements that homes in coastal areas be built on stilts."

"Yet, for those who face wildfire, mitigation measures such as building with burn-resistant materials and clearing nearby vegetation are usually optional, making it nearly impossible for firefighters to safely defend communities. Meanwhile, since the federal government picks up most of the tab for firefighting, there’s not much incentive for state and local agencies to regulate development."

"This needs to change. We need to stop seeing wildfire as an enemy to be exterminated forever and instead accept it as inevitable. We need to recognize that communities built without wildfire-mitigation measures are tinderboxes waiting to burn and stop incentivizing homeowners to rebuild with kindling."

Kolden explains what fire ecologists have learned over the past century and what climate change will bring. She notes:

"...we can make forests healthier and reduce future risk by allowing some remote wildfires to burn. We can also improve forests and clear flammable vegetation around communities using thinning and prescribed burning, reducing the chance that fires will make the leap from wildlands to homes."

"Most important, however, we’ve learned how powerless we truly are when it comes to wildfires. Despite impressive technological advances in firefighting, we are still at the mercy of weather, such as thunderstorms and lightning strike that brought tragedy to Yarnell. Firefighters with decades of experience tell me that they have never seen fire behavior as extreme as what they are seeing now. We simply cannot stop high-intensity, wind-driven wildfires, and we need to quit asking firefighters to place themselves in harm’s way."

An investigation into the disaster is being led by Florida State Forester Jim Karels. Its purpose is to understand the circumstances leading up to the disaster and identify ways "to possibly prevent such a terrible loss in the future.” I'll be eager to read the investigation team's report when it is released. I hope they highlight the upstream factors identified by Crystal Kolden, such as zoning and building codes, as essential ways to keep firefighters out of harm's way.

The obituaries for Andrew Ashcraft, 29, Robert Caldwell, 23, Travis Carter, 31, Dustin Deford, 24, Chris MacKenzie, 30, Eric Marsh, 43, Grant McKee, 21, Sean Misner, 26, Scott Norris, 28, Wade Parker, 22, John Percin, 24, Anthony Rose, 23, Jesse Steed, 36, Joe Thurston, 32, William Warneke, 25, Travis Turbyfill, 27, Clayton Whitted, 28, Kevin Woyjeck, 21, Garrett Zuppiger, 27, are available here. May they rest in peace.

cmonforton Tue, 07/09/2013 - 06:54

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Occupational Health & Safety

safety

firefighters

Granite Mountain Hotshots

US Fire Administration

wildfire

Yarnell Hill fire

safety

Back in the 90s, I worked with Eric Marsh on ski patrol.

I can't see sending him and 19 others in to risk their lives trying to save structures when the structure's owners don't even value them enough to clear fuel from around them. I've done that -- back in 2005 I cleared the ladder fuel on the acre around my mother's place in the mountains with a friend (a small woman, like me in her 50s.) It took a day and a half to not only cut the dog hair but reduce it to either firewood or sawdust for composting.

Meanwhile all over Arizona I see places where houses are invisible from 50 meters away thanks to thick undergrowth. If people don't care enough to spend a weekend on protecting their property, it isn't worth the lives of people like Eric to save it.

The historic mistakes made in wild lads management have largely been made in an attempt to support private enterprise. The tendency to want to put out all fires going back to the 1900s was undertaken to keep lumber operation profitable. Trees were a valuable resource and letting them burn was seen as a massive loss of profits. So public money was spent to keep the lumber industry happy.

This was the age of Smokey the Bear and every fire being fought. Which. ironically, allowed the unburned fuels to remain and the forests to become more flammable, dangerous to firefighting crews, and vulnerable to fire.

Of course now the commercial interests are different. Now it is real estate people, developers, and home builders who demand public money be spent to keep their market viable. And the risk has never been greater for crews. Ecosystems that historically burned every few years are now decades behind and stacked with unburned fuel.

IMHO what needs to be done is to slowly, and incrementally, withdrawal fire protection from developments too far away from towns and too far into the forests. If the homeowners or developers want their land protected from fire they can pay for private crews and restructure their developments and buildings to be more fire resistant.

Relieved of any need to travel deep into the woods fire crews can better chose their ground and will have access to water, paved roads, and easy escape routes. The job would get a lot easier, and safer.

I simply don't care that this might inconvenience developers and interfere with their desires to make big money selling the dream of a house in the woods. I also feel little sympathy for people who spend money top buy into this pipe dream.

Take a lesson from old timers who had a cabin on the beach or deep in the wilderness. They built those cabins to be expendable because they knew that storms or fires would destroy them.

in this day and age there has to be a more modern way of fighting these fires.making fire breaks by ax and spade should end with that fire.

Fallen Houston firefighters raise national death toll to 37, 2013 especially deadly for Texas crews

cmonforton — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 11:23:20 +0000

Fallen Houston firefighters raise national death toll to 37, 2013 especially deadly for Texas crews

[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 dangerous year for Texas firefighters. In recent years, about five firefighters in Texas die in the line-of-duty each year. So far in 2013, the official death toll is already 13.

On February 15, Fire Lieutenants Gregory Pickard, 54, and Eric Wallace, 36, were killed on-the-job while fighting a fire at a Knights of Columbus Hall in Bryan, Texas. The city's fire chief said the blaze

"was sparked by a faulty electrical cord running from a fan in the Knights of Columbus Hall."

Two other firefighters, Ricky Mantey Jr., 30, and Mitch Moran, 21, were seriously injured in the incident. They received treatment for their injuries at Blocker Burn Unit in Galveston---150 miles away from Bryan, Texas---and only returned home June 1.

A firefighter cadet with the League City, Texas volunteer fire department collapsed and died on March 6 following a training exercise. Donald Mize, 62, was a retired school teacher who began his firefighter training one month prior to his death. Stanley A. Wilson, 51, with the Dallas Fire-Rescue Department died on May 20 while responding to a fire at Hearthwood Condominiums. Wilson died after being trapped when part of the structure collapsed.

On top of these Texas firefighter deaths are those related to the April 17 explosion at West Fertilizer in West, Texas. Some news accounts report nine of the 15 victims were first responders, others say the number is 10 or 11. The provisional data posted by the U.S. Fire Administration currently counts only five of the deaths as on-duty fatalities. Those five deaths were men who were with the West Volunteer Fire Department: Morris Bridges, Jr., 41; Cody Draggo, 50; Douglas Snokhous, 50; his brother, Robert Snokhous, 48; and Joey Pustejovsky, 29.

There were seven other individuals who responded to the scene and were also killed by the explosion. They may have been trying to contain the fire, or helping to evacuate residents when the massive explosion hit. Five of these individuals were trained volunteer firefighters, but may not meet the U.S. Fire Administration's criteria for an "on-duty" fatality because they may not have been responding in an official capacity. (That determination is subject to change as the investigations continue.) Several of them were attending an EMT class in West on the day of the explosion. Kevin William Sanders, 33, was with the Bruceville-Eddy Volunteer Fire Department; Perry Calvin, 37 was with the Navarro Mills and Martens volunteer fire departments; Kenneth Harris, 52, was a captain with the Dallas fire department; Jerry Dane Chapman, 26 was a member of the Abbott Volunteer Firefighters; and Cyrus Adam Reed, 29 was a member of the Abbott and Bynum volunteer fire departments.

In the preliminary information posted on the U.S. Fire Administration's website of firefighter fatalities, only the firefighters with the West Volunteer Fire Department appear on the list. For now, the other firefighters are considered citizens responding as good samaritans, but not as firefighters. As the Fire Administration gathers more information on the circumstances that led these firefighters to respond to the incident, they may determine that some or all of these deaths were also "on-duty" fatalities.

In 2013 to-date, the Fire Administration reports 33 firefighter deaths across the U.S., and with the deaths of the four Houston firefighters the total is now 37. Thirteen of those "line-of-duty" deaths are among Texas firefighters. This compares to five deaths in 2012, six in 2011, two in 2010, five in 2009, and four in 2008.

[Update 7/1/2013: Nineteen firefighters with the Granite Mountain Hotshots were killed on June 30, 2013 while battling a wildfire in Yarnell, Arizona. The disaster is the largest number of firefighters killed in a wildfire since the 1933 Griffith Park, California blaze that killed 25 men. Yarnell, AZ is about 80 miles northwest of Phoenix.]

cmonforton Tue, 06/04/2013 - 07:23

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Occupational Health & Safety

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U.S. Fire Administration

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Workers' Memorial Week 2013: Mourning the dead, fighting for the living

lborkowski — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 09:56:03 +0000

Workers' Memorial Week 2013: Mourning the dead, fighting for the living

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 explosion at a fertilizer plant in the town of West killed at least 14 people. Among the casualties listed on the Waco Tribune's website are several firefighters:

Morris Bridges, 41. Fire sprinkler technician for Action Fire Pros. Member of West Volunteer Fire Department.
Perry Calvin, 37. Student at Hill College Fire Academy. Member of Mertens and Navarro Mills volunteer fire departments.
Jerry Chapman, 26. Worked as a server. Member of Abbott Volunteer Fire Department.
Cody Dragoo, 50. Foreman at West Fertilizer Co. Member of West Volunteer Fire Department.
Kenny Harris, 52. Dallas city fire captain.
Joey Pustejovsky. West City Secretary. Member of West Volunteer Fire Department.
Cyrus Reed. Worked at Waxahachie plant. Member of Abbott Volunteer Fire Department.
Robert Snokhous, 48. Central Texas Iron Works employee, West volunteer firefighter.
Doug Snokhous, 50. Central Texas Iron Works employee, West volunteer firefighter.

Manny Fernandez writes in the New York Times about the memorial service for ten firefighters and two men who are being recognized as firefighters for their work battling the blaze:

The department lost five of its 28 members, officials said. Several members were injured and taken to hospitals, including the chief, George Nors Sr., 67, who was released on Friday. The acting chief is his son, George Nors Jr., 34.

... The department had five engines and trucks; now, it has two. On Friday night, trucks and firefighters from Waxahachie and other towns were in the fire station, covering the day-to-day duties so that members of the West department could recuperate and grieve among themselves and their loved ones.

“They lost one-fifth of their organization,” Mr. Ondrasek said. “Many of the officers within the organization either died or are in the hospital. It all brings home how dangerous the job is that you don’t get paid to do. You’re serving your community because this is what you want to do and feel like you need to do. And you can pay with your life.”

First responders deserve our praise and gratitude for serving their communities in jobs that can endanger their lives. All too often, though, their deaths are preventable -- as are thousands of other on-the-job deaths.

During Workers' Memorial Week, people who've lost loved ones to workplace deaths are in our thoughts and, in many cases, in the media spotlight. Many brave members of group United Support and Memorial for Workplace Fatalities have told their stories to reporters, lawmakers, and regulators in efforts to advocate for improved worker health and safety protections. This year, Danielle Dole told the (Tennessee) Cadillac News about her father, Sherman Holmes, who was killed in a logging incident while working at K&K Forest Products. Reporter Rick Charmoli wrote:

Danielle Dole struggles every day with the loss of her father.

On April Fool’s Day, Dole typically would get a call from her dad, Sherman Holmes, and he would tell her jokes.

Last Monday, there was no such call.

Every Christmas, the Tustin native would spend the holiday with both her parents even though they were divorced and had been for a number of years. The past two holiday seasons, a spot at the table was left unfilled.

This is part of the grief Dole deals with every day. While death is inevitable, Dole’s father didn’t die after a long sickness or from natural causes. He died from a work-related accident. He was 55.

Dole didn't get to say goodbye. She didn’t get the chance to introduce her father to his yet-to-be-born granddaughter. Her son Jackson, who was 2 when Holmes died on Feb. 1, 2011, will only have fleeting memories of his Papa Sherman.

... A few months after her father died, Dole and her sister received a flyer from the United Support and Memorial for Workplace Fatalities. The non-profit organization is a support group made up of families who have been in the same situation and understand the emotions and questions people like Dole may have regarding the loss of their family member.

The group has helped make things easier, but the struggles still remain for Dole. It has made her stronger, however, knowing that she is not alone and others are dealing with the same emotions.

“It is like my extra family,” she said.

In addition to the the support, Dole said the group also advocates for the families who have lost loved ones by lobbying in states and in Washington, D.C., for the transformation of the work environment to safe and healthy conditions for all workers.

Danielle Dole has organized the June 1 Sherman L. Holmes 5K Run-Walk as part of her efforts to raise awareness of workplace safety while honoring her father's memory. She has also traveled to Washington, DC and joined other USMWF members in meeting with regulators and demonstrating in the front of the US Chamber of Commerce to advocate for stronger workplace health and safety protections (read more about their DC visit on page 17 of our report The Year in US Occupational Health & Safety).

Workers' Memorial Week of Action events are taking place in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. The National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) has compiled listings for these events as well as more info about Workers' Memorial Day, and their website features several Stories of Fallen Workers. National COSH will also be holding a Facebook Town Hall on Wednesday, April 24 (submit your questions now; a live Q&A will start at 1pm ET) and leading a Twitterstorm on Thursday April 25 (concentrated at 1pm, but going on throughout the day).

lborkowski Mon, 04/22/2013 - 05:56

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Occupational Health & Safety

SciWo's Storytime: Little Squirt the Fire Truck

sciencewoman — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:23:28 +0000

SciWo's Storytime: Little Squirt the Fire Truck

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 there's nothing wrong with reading about fire trucks, I just don't think that this particular book rises to the level of other classics of the genre, like Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things that Go or Wong Herbert Yee's Fireman Small books.

Anyways, I was in the process of contemplating Minnow's enthusiasm for fire truck books and wondering how I was going to get her to see a real-life fire truck when one came to us. Literally. Here's a photo of a fire truck parked at our house a few days after this video was made. No one had a fire, but an elderly neighbor fell and hurt himself and the firefighters/first responders were dispatched to help him up and to the hospital.

Minnow was very impressed, and also very relieved that the fire truck did not sound its siren on our tiny quiet street. When she was 1, the firefighters had come to her daycare for a demo and had sounded the siren for the kids. Minnow still talks about how scared she was.

We've got a wonderful book about pillbugs that I really want to make a video about, and we're still trying to track down some of the other great books requested by our DonorsChoose friends, so check back next week for another edition of SciWo's (and Minnow's) Storytime.

sciencewoman Fri, 11/20/2009 - 00:23

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A nice story well read. Outstanding.

Our local volunteer fire department will give full tours upon request. You just have to call them to set up an appointment. They also have an open house, but I've never made it to that. While we were waiting for fireworks last year I took my 4-year old niece over and asked if the volunteers could show her around - they were more than happy to. They even let her sit in the driver's seat for a minute. (these were not the ones directly supervising the action, just in the parking lot where all the people were)
Maybe professional fire departments are different, though.

You don't think that this book rises to the level of other classics of the genre? I beg to differ. My little girls loved for me to read this book to them -- over and over. They were so happy when Little Squirt and his firemen rescued the baby and the mommy!

And then a bad man came and set fire to our house! My girls were so grateful that Little Squirt and the firemen came and put out the fire before our whole house burnt down!

Unfortunately, our Little Squirt book was one of the things that got burnt up in the fire. That's why I came looking for it on the Internet. I was ecstatic to find this video of another mommy reading it to her little girl! And such a good reading, too. Thank you so much!

Glad you enjoyed it. :-)