Where firefighters come to talk training

IIf you had technology to monitor your firefighter's core body temp to help prevent them from succumbing to heat illness, would you?

1. As a company officer or incident commander, would you monitor your firefighter's core body temp to keep them from possibly succumbing to heat-related illness?

2. As a firefighter, would you feel safer knowing that an Incident Commander or Medical Division Officer is monitoring your body temp and has up-to-date accountability information? ( Medical Hx, Allergies, Blood Type, etc...)

3. Have you every succumbed to heat illness and couldn't continue to complete your mission on the scene?

4. Have you ever felt that you were on scene too long before being sent to rehab?

- Admin Questions -

1. Do you have an effective system of monitoring the level of exertion of your firefighters?

2. Is your rehabilitation system effective? How do you know?

3. Can you monitor you personnel in real time, helping to predict a medical event before it possibly happens?

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Paul Abend on August 14, 2009 at 8:24pm

Yes I would monitor members core temp IF it didn’t result in information overload.

It would be nice if they could monitor my vital signs. However I don’t think medical HX should be available to anyone unless it’s needed. Maybe sealed in your accountability tag. Break open in case of emergency type of thing would be great.

I have never succumbed to heat illness and neither has any of my crew. I watch them like hawks and make sure they take every opportunity to rehydrate and cool down. Even if it’s nothing more then taking off their helmet mask and hood and slamming a bottle of water while their bottle is changed.

Our system is effective for us. It however requires everyone to be attentive to their crew and themselves. Well I think our system is working because our members have not at least in the last 6 yrs entered rehab needing anything more then some liquid a little cool down and back to work. All vitals within expected range upon entering rehab and even better before they left.

▶ Reply

▶ Reply to Discussion

RSS

Welcome to
Fire Engineering Training Community

Sign Up
or Sign In

Or sign in with:

Policy Page

PLEASE NOTE

The login above DOES NOT provide access to Fire Engineering magazine archives. Please go here for our archives.

CONTRIBUTORS NOTE

Our contributors' posts are not vetted by the Fire Engineering technical board, and reflect the views and opinions of the individual authors. Anyone is welcome to participate.

For vetted content, please go to www.fireengineering.com/issues.

We are excited to have you participate in our discussions and interactive forums. Before you begin posting, please take a moment to read our community policy page.

Be Alert for Spam
We actively monitor the community for spam, however some does slip through. Please use common sense and caution when clicking links. If you suspect you've been hit by spam, e-mail peter.prochilo@clarionevents.com.