Importance of Fitness in Our Nation’s First Responders

Importance of Fitness in Our Nation’s First Responders - Firefighters are enjoying a calm evening around the fire station and then suddenly they get a call for a structure fire. The firefighters are expected to work at high aerobic capacities for at least the next hour in order to extinguish this fire.  The question is: Are the firefighters healthy enough to complete the task and survive?
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) estimates that there are approximately 1.1 million active volunteer and career firefighters in the United States of America.  The vast majority of these firefighters are volunteers that serve rural communities with populations less that 25,000 people. The majority of career firefighters in the United States are required to pass some kind of physical fitness assessment, however volunteer fire departments around the country do not put an emphasis on physical fitness for their firefighters.
Contrary to common beliefs, the majority of on-duty firefighting deaths are not due to the actual fire the firefighters are trying to control, but instead due to underlying cardiovascular disease.  Approximately 45% of on-duty deaths are due to cardiac events, which occur mostly during fire suppression, training and alarm response (FEMA).  In order to help prevent this alarming trend, the National Institute for Occupation Safety and Health (NIOSH) has repeatedly suggested the need for annual ‘fitness for duty’ medical evaluations and the need for mandatory cardiovascular fitness and wellness programs for firefighters.
With these alarming statistics regarding the deaths and poor cardiovascular health of firefighters, it is crucial to inform this occupational cohort of the dangers of an unhealthy and sedentary lifestyle.  In order to prevent future deaths of our nation’s first responders, we should take the advice of NIOSH and implement mandatory fitness and wellness programs for firefighters.
Sources:
Firefighter Fatalities Statistics and Reports’, 2013) <http://apps.usfa.fema.gov/firefighter-fatalities/fatalityData/statistics
  1. Kunadharaju, T. D. Smith, and D. M. DeJoy, ‘Line-of-Duty Deaths among U.S. Firefighters: An Analysis of Fatality Investigations’, Accid Anal Prev, 43 (2011), 1171-80.

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