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Firefighters Trained In Roadway Safety
03/28/09
For Immediate Release
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Thirty-eight firefighters from St. Tammany Fire Protection District No. 12 recently completed a six-hour class titled Responder Safety on the Roadway.
Instructors from the LSU-FETI (LSU Fire & Emergency Training Institute) taught the class to three shifts of professional firefighters earlier this week.
“This class was a tremendous asset to our employees due to the high volume of our calls putting our firefighters at risk routinely,” said FD12’s Chief of Training, Safety and Fire Prevention Stephen Krentel. “We are always on the lookout for any education opportunity to prepare our employees out in the field.”
Each year, firefighters and other first responders around the country face significant peril when responding to traffic accidents and fires on highways. In 2007, 118 firefighters died in the line of duty, according to the U.S. Fire Administration. Of those, 76 occurred during a response to an emergency incident and 27 involved traffic accidents or collisions.
Fire District 12 has never had a line-of-duty death in its 25 years of operations, and officials want to keep the record clean.
“It’s imperative that our staff have the tools they need to remain safe on duty,” Krentel said. “Providing instruction in roadway safety is just one element of our workplace safety initiatives.”
The Responder Safety on the Roadway course is designed to increase awareness of risk and offer training in mitigating those dangers that are inherent in the duties of professional firefighters. The course teaches firefighters to recognize and document roadway hazards, identify mitigating steps, and implement safety protocols through traffic management.
Responding to roadway incidents often involves closing one or more lanes of traffic while emergency responders tend to injured victims, control fire and fire-causing hazards, and remove debris. Inattentive drivers or those who simply fail to reduce speed can easily cause injury or death to firefighters and other emergency responders. All motorists are encouraged to take their own precautions to avoid accidents and collisions and to adapt driving behavior appropriately when emergency responders are on-scene.
Media contact: Krentel, 985.892.5161, or James Hartman, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or 504.458.4600
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