The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) is recruiting code enforcers for its more than 200 technical committees. “We need code enforcers because they have particular knowledge and experience on how our codes and standards are applied in the field,” explains James Shannon, president of the NFPA.
Since cuts in municipal budgets, including elimination of travel expenses for public employees, have made it more difficult for code enforcers to participate in technical committee meetings, the NFPA has created a special fund to subsidize 80 percent of travel and lodging expenses for code enforcers—public employees and members of the volunteer fire service—who participate in technical committee meetings.
Technical committee members are asked to participate in about 10 meeting days over a three- to five-year period. Additional information is available at www.nfpa.org/enforcers.
Line-of-Duty Deaths
May 16. Fire Police Captain David Wintz, 65, Bristol (PA) Fire Company: apparent heart attack.
May 17. Firefighter William Richard Danes, 69, Brazos County Precinct 3 Volunteer Fire Department, Bryan, TX: apparent heart attack.
June 3. Captain Todd Tompkins, 48, Neptune Aviation Services, Inc., Missoula, MT: plane crash while fighting White Rock fire in eastern Nevada.
June 3. First Off cer Ronnie Chambless, 40, Neptune Aviation Services, Inc., Missoula, MT: plane crash while fighting White Rock fire in eastern Nevada. Source: USFA Firefighters Memorial Database
Unsafe injection practices cause of infectious disease outbreaks
In a finding that “shocked” many in the healthcare/medical arena, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed that more than 40 outbreaks of infectious disease during the past 10 years were caused by unsafe injection practices. The outbreaks involved hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and bacterial infections.
“It is fundamentally unacceptable that these outbreaks were because healthcare providers failed to follow Standard Precautions when preparing an injection,” Peter Graves, M.D., chairman, Department of Emergency Medicine, Academic Faculty, Kent Hospital Emergency Medicine Residency Program, Warwick, Rhode Island, writes in his June 1, 2012, blog, “You Could Have Heard a Pin Drop: Kent Hospital Renews Vigilance on Injection Safety Rules.”
Graves listed the “lapses in basic infection control,” which included reusing needles and syringes from patient to patient or misusing single-dose and multidose vials. “This boggles the minds of many practitioners who may feel they are following correct procedures—when in fact they might not be doing so at all,” comments Graves.
The CDC and Safe Injection Practices Coalition (SIPC) said more than 130,000 patients were notified that they might be at risk for bloodborne disease because of unsafe practices, and experts consider this number low.
Graves says that even though Kent Hospital has never had an outbreak or known infection, the hospital’s Continuing Medical Education (CME) Committee established the Safe Injection Practices Coalition’s One & Only Campaign, with the slogan “One Needle, One Syringe, Only One Time.” Graves presents an example of a physician’s wife, one of 99 persons infected with hepatitis C after an outbreak in her Nebraska town in 2002. She had a recurrence of breast cancer and contracted hepatitis C because a provider used one IV bag as a shared source of flush for multiple chemotherapy patients.
The hospital’s CME program also meets the Rhode Island requirement for bloodborne pathogens education necessary for physician relicensure.
In addition to “reemphasizing existing hospital rules on injection preparation and handling vials of medicine, Graves, as chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine, added the following rules on suture carts for all nursing staff, residents, ED physicians, and other ancillary staff:
- Discard any opened vials of local anesthetic, sodium bicarbonate, or any other medication found in a procedure cart or patient area after the medication has been used.
- Consider all medication as single-use vials, and discard after use.
- Affix a procedure cart warning to suture carts stating all vials are to be discarded after use. http://blogs.cdc.gov/safehealthcare/?p=2411
ASTM launches conformity program
ASTM International’s Supplier’s Declaration of Conformity program will provide evidence that products conform to its test methods, not to ASTM specifications, ASTM explains. Product test results registered with ASTM will be used to document registration and acceptance by an independent third party. Suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and private brand owners can participate.
The program conforms to the requirements of ISO/IEC 17050-1 and 17050-2 Conformity Assessment-Supplier’s Declaration of Conformity. Additional information is available from Timothy Brooke; ASTM vice president, Certification, Training, and Proficiency Testing, at (610) 832-9729 or www.astm.org/suppliers.
NVFC offers equipment management training
Four equipment management training webinars for firefighters and other emergency service personnel will be available from the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) this summer, the organization advised at press time. Funded through a Fire Prevention and Safety grant, the webinars will cover the full life cycle of funding, maintaining, using, and retiring equipment.
Industry leaders from NVFC partner companies Globe, Rosenbauer America, Scott Safety, and W. S. Darley will teach the one-hour courses. Topics will include Proper Equipment Management, Equipment Use and Maintenance, Retiring Equipment, and Funding Equipment Needs.
In addition, the NVFC is developing an equipment tracking template in a user-friendly spreadsheet format fire departments can download and customize for their departments. The template will include information on recommended maintenance, replacement dates, and additional resources for equipment management. Additional information is available at www.nvfc.org and http://www.nvfc.org/trainingeducation/nvfc-academy-online-training/.
NFPA standards 1500 and 1582 undergoing revision
The new editions of NFPA 1500, Standard on Fire Department Occupational Safety and Health Program, and NFPA 1582, Comprehensive Occupational Medical Program for Fire Departments, scheduled for 2013, will include changes that represent significant steps forward for firefighter health and wellness, according to Kendall Holland, NFPA fire service specialist, (NFPA Journal, May/June 2012).
NFPA 1500: The new edition of NFPA 1500 will have two “significant” changes. The first is related to critical incident stress programs, covered in Chapter 12, “Critical Incident Stress Program,” in the current edition. The new Chapter 12 title will be “Occupational Exposure to Atypically Stressful Events.” Holland explains that this change recognizes and addresses the many steps or procedures that can and need to be done to manage stress resulting from an atypical stressful event. The needs vary from person to person. Critical incident stress debriefing (CISD), for example, is just one step among many in dealing with stressful events. The change expands the plan of action to encompass the overall health and wellness of the firefighter as it relates to an atypically stressful event. CISD will be a component of many components for managing stressful events in the chapter.
The second significant change pertains to the use of the word “MAYDAY” when a firefighter is in danger or subject to emergency conditions. As the NFPA 1500 standard is currently written, a firefighter is required to declare “emergency traffic,” signaling that he has an emergency communication that takes priority over communications occurring on the radio. Also, the standard stipulates that the firefighter is to use plain language in radio communications transmissions when identifying the emergency to the incident commander and that he also transmit the message “all clear, resume radio traffic” when the situation is no longer an emergency.
Holland notes that the consensus among committee members is that the language in the current standard is vague and does not reflect common usage within the fire service or in other public safety agencies. Proponents of the change say “MAYDAY” is the term commonly used to identify and declare an emergency situation and using “emergency traffic” could be confusing to members of multiple public safety agencies using the same radio frequency.
NFPA 1582: Chapter 6 contains the medical requirements and evaluations for fire department candidates; Chapter 9 contains the medical requirements for annual medical physicals for fire department members. Holland explains that three areas have undergone “significant revisions”: amputees and joint replacement, diabetes and endocrine/metabolic issues, and pregnancy. The proposed changes “align the document and its requirements with current medical thought, application, and technology,” notes Holland.
Amputees and joint replacement. The committee’s discussions, Holland says, revolved around a central question, which was essentially this: “If the military allows certain prosthetics to be used in combat, why can’t the fire service do the same?” With state-of-the-art prosthetics and joints available, the issue of whether a firefighter candidate or member who has one of these adjuncts in place must be more thoroughly evaluated when being assessed.
Diabetes and endocrine/metabolic issues. Changes were needed to reflect advancements in medicine and treatment modalities. In the current edition, medical conditions such as Type 1 diabetes would disqualify candidates from consideration unless they could show or prove that there was no more than one hypoglycemic event over a period of five years. In the next edition, the number of hypoglycemic episodes was increased to two, and the time period was shortened to three years.
Pregnancy. In the current edition of NFPA 1582, pregnancy is described as a category B medical condition that could preclude a person from performing in a training or an emergency operational environment because it might present a significant risk to the safety and health of the person or others. However, the standard contains no information about fire department members who are pregnant. The revised standard establishes the need for the pregnant firefighter and her physician to recognize the inherent dangers of firefighting and the potential negative impacts they may have on the mother and the unborn child. The fire department member, her physician, and a representative of the authority having jurisdiction, such as a fire chief, are to work together to reach a decision on the duties the firefighter is able to perform and the point at which the risks outweigh the benefits of being able to safely perform the job.
New NIOSH Firefighter Fatality Investigation Report releases
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recently released the following Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation Reports:
- F2011-10, April 9, 2011: “Volunteer fire fighter dies and three fire fighters are injured during wildland fire—Texas.” http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/fire/reports/face201110.html.
- F2011-13, June 2, 2011: “A career lieutenant and fire fighter/paramedic die in a hillside residential house fire—California.” http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/fire/reports/face201113.html.
- F2011-14, June 15, 2011: “Career fire fighter dies in church fire following roof collapse—Indiana.” http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/fire/reports/face201114.html.
- F2011-23, September 18, 2011: “Volunteer fire fighter struck and killed while directing traffic at an interstate highway incident—Iowa.” http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/fire/reports/face201123.html.
IAFC introduces online learning tool
The Electronic Learning Community (ELC) learning tool provides emergency first responders with a convenient and economical method for obtaining high-quality training. The Hydrogen Response Considerations course, the first ELC offering, addresses hydrogen and hydrogen fuel cell incidents. Training standards will be compliant with National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 472, Standard for Competence of Responders to Hazardous Materials/Weapons of Mass Destruction Incidents, which will be used as the framework.
The ELC is the result of a cooperative agreement between the International Association of Fire Chiefs and the Department of Transportation (DOT) Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. The DOT’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration funded the project.
The purpose of this project is to evaluate online distance learning as an approach to training the volunteer first responder community. Additional training topic areas will be added as the need arises. All responders are invited to participate. Additional information is available at www.responder-elc.org.
