Selective Station Alerting

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Permalink Reply by Jason Gennaro on May 30, 2009 at 5:11pm

When you get a call at night your body does the whole "fight or flight" thing and releases epinepherine. Your heart rate rises also. Having your heart rate rise and hormones pumped into your heart is bad on multiple levels. It's been determined that a tone which "ramps" from soft to loud is much better for firefighter health.

Look at this site and read the associated articles for more detailed information. Good luck bro.

http://www.firestationalerting.com/content/view/23/31/

Jason

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Permalink Reply by Larry Lasich on May 30, 2009 at 5:32pm

Brother, nothing that breaks up your sleep is good. What kind of shift do you work? What is your hang over and call back policy? Two days of that stuff will make you dangerous. There is no reason to wake up people that are not going. We have a combo department that puts Engine crews and EMS in different sleep rooms so that structure guys don't get up for calls that don't need manpower.

If everyone is going on no sleep from the time you take your shift, until the time you head home, decisions ARE going to suffer. It's a great way to have people fall asleep at the wheel. I hope that you can work with your dispatch and fix this.

In the mean time, stay safe.

Larry

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Permalink Reply by Chris McMahon on June 6, 2009 at 6:02pm

WE HAVEN'T DONE ANY RESEARCH, BUT WE HAVE A UNIQUE SYSTEM. ALL THE 911 CALLS COME OVER THE INTERCOM AT ALL 3 STATIONS. THE ADVANTAGE IS THAT EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT IS GOING ON AND EVERYONE HAS AN IDEA OF WHAT THE CALL IS. I PERSONALLY BELIEVE IT LOWERS THE ADRENALINE RUSH THAT RECENT STUDIES RELATE TO HEART PROBLEMS IN FF. THE DOWN SIDE IS THAT WE ALL GET WOKEN UP NO MATTER WHO'S CALL IT IS. I THINK IT WORKS WELL

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Permalink Reply by Shawn Tibbitts on June 9, 2009 at 3:06pm

We have four houses and we hear all radio traffic and tones over the night. To be honest with you I can sleep through everyone else s tones its the squeak at the end that wakes me up for my trucks calls. I guess I can see pros and cons from both sides on this, personally I would like to know what the other houses have, but like I said I sleep through them anyways:) Good luck and keep me posted im curious how this turns out for you.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Dombroski on June 9, 2009 at 6:37pm

Our union over here down under fought this battle several years ago. We now have tones that ramp up from quiet, as well as dimmers on the lights so they don't come at full brightness. It makes a huge difference to the state you get on the truck in. I'm currently working at a station that hasn't got it right yet and it feels like I have to get down off the ceiling before I can get dressed. I hate it. We certainly don't get called for other station's turn outs. There are several studies that recognise "alarm stress" as being very detrimental to our health. It would be difficult for an organisation to ignore this problem if clear facts were provided to show a health issue and a means of preventing it were provided (one would hope!).
Good luck

Mike D

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