INTRODUCTION This paper focuses on firefighters as emergency service personnel. Fire personnel work in dangerous situations, such as in tight spaces or in environments where there is little oxygen. Additionally, emergency service personnel may bring external stress factors to work, such as their ages and personal backgrounds. The job causes firefighting personnel to experience high stress levels, which may impact their lives. Firefighters also face higher risk of heart disease as a result of stress and physical exertion associated with the job. Stress, cardiac problems, and the recommendations to maintain emergency service personnel's health will be discussed in this paper.
EMERGENCY SERVICE PERSONNEL WORKING CONDITIONS Firefighting personnel
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Even though the job is physically demanding, firefighting attracts those who have the intent to serve the public. (Aunkst, Russeull, and Savitt, 2010, p. 4). The fire personnel face increasing risk of injuries and the risk is a concern for fire departments throughout the United States (Poplin, et al., 2015). One of the most common injury associated with this position includes various degree of burns to the skin, inhalation injury, and potentially smoke inhalation which could compromise the upper airway. Additionally, emergency service personnel could potentially experience post traumatic stress disorder during rescue due to flashbacks. These flashbacks distract the firefighters and even make them incapable of functioning adequately for the …show more content…
The prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder in fire personnel is on average, higher than the rate in the general population. PTSD prevalence rate ranges from five to twenty-two percent compared to the approximately seven percent in the population. (Angleman, Hasselt, Kibler, and Simco, 2010, p. 7). Other than PTSD, emergency service personnel who had exposure to critical incidents are at higher risks for acute stress disorder and depression (Fullerton, Ursano, and Wang, 2004). Mental health is important for all firefighting personnel because they may have to make life or death decisions under stressful situations. They should be clear-headed when making such decisions. As a result of stress disorders, the mission of rescuing and/or firefighting can be
As an employee of The New York City Fire Department, it is our duty to know its mission state and what its internal core analysis consists off. “As first responders to fires, public safety and medical emergencies, disasters and terrorist acts, the FDNY protects the lives and property of New York City residents and visitors. The Department advances public safety through its fire prevention, investigation and education programs. The timely delivery of these services enables the FDNY to make significant contributions to the safety of New York City and homeland security efforts. The New York City Fire Department’s internal core analysis consists of: Service: the department continues its unwavering call to protect and serve. Bravery: courage is the foundation of each character. Bravery is the ability to overcome fear through fortitude, instinct, compassion for others and training. Safety: our citizens must be reasonably free from danger, especially deliberate, harmful acts. With the best equipment and training, the department can reduce the risk to the public and its members at fires, emergencies and medical incidents. Honor: the enormous commitment necessary to perform the department’s tasks requires excellence of character. They inspire each other through pride in the unit, which is a belief that every action reflects on all the members of the unit, both past and present. Dedication: a commitment to the objectives to their mission is an essential part of their code of conduct. The faithful observance of duty, calls for the FDNY to fulfill their obligations professionally and honestly. Preparedness: by combining all of the components of their core values, the FDNY will maintain its constant state of readiness to meet all threats and c...
Throughout the fire service, firefighters encounter a high level of different stresses that can cause post dramatic stress disorder. A plethora amount of people have not thought about how not only the military personnel, however a wide range of emergency calls or other factors come into play that results in fire personnel acquiring this disorder. This disorder has an enormous problem that will affect the management in the fire department.
The conclusion the author made was that the study showed that undulated training was the way to go for firefighters who need the multidimensional muscular and performance training in order to succeed at their job. Undulated training, in this sense, had greater potential. In 2000, the NFPA created a new firefighting ordinance that created health and physical fitness requirements that firefighters had to pass in order to be cleared to perform their jobs. This was to motivate firefighters to perform the best they could in order to succeed, including improving firefighter health by helping them avoid serious injury or disease and improve their performance in order to succeed at their job.
Mental health in the fire service is an upcoming problem, but has been occurring for years without firefighters even knowing it. Specifically post-traumatic stress disorder known as PTSD and firefighter suicides are the main issues that have a large impact in the fire service. This outline will lay out the main points that are a result, impact, or other subjects in relation to the two main issues above. Firefighter deaths are rising rapidly, members of the fire service need to be educated on PTSD and suicide to provide treatment before another devastating event occurs in result of the issues effects.
Firefighters are more than friends. You can't fight fires with friends. To fight fires you need a brotherhood. The men and women of the fire service across the globe consider each other family, this is one of the grand traditions of the fire department. Firefighters are constantly looking out for one another, thinking about the things they do and how it may affect the other’s lives and safety. Life safety is of the highest priority in the business of fire rescue. To achieve a safety standard there are many tasks that fire personnel are expected to carry out, for both a personal and a team related purpose. One of these tasks is the daily inspection of the fire apparatus upon arrival to the fire station. This task is with most certainty the most essential process that fire personnel are responsible for in order to get through the shift safely and efficiently.
The article under review is Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in the DSM-5: Controversy, Change, and Conceptual Considerations by Anushka Pai, Alina M. Suris, and Carol S. North in Behavioral Sciences. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a mental health problem that some people develop after experiencing or witnessing a life-threatening event, like combat, a natural disaster, a car accident, or sexual assault (U.S. Department VA, 2007). PTSD can happen to anyone and many factors can increase the possibility of developing PTSD that are not under the person’s own control. Symptoms of PTSD usually will start soon after the traumatic event but may not appear for months or years later. There are four types of symptoms of PTSD but may show in different
the psychological health of police, fire, and ambulance officers.” International Journal of Stress Management, Vol. 11, pp. 227-44.
The law enforcement officers suffer quite more job-associated stress than the people living in the community. Many have had to realize that the nature of the profession itself may be exposing officers to the increased levels of stressors. In essence, job-associated stress is among the major health concerns of the law enforcement community, and this is because it can have some impact on the physical, mental and emotional well-being of the officers. The difference in the stressors between the law enforcement personnel and other individuals is the fact that, the enforcement officials get to interact with the human population that are quite angry, upset or even uncooperative, in which case it takes some toll on
Kliem, M-B. Bingisser, Westphal, and R. Bingisser (2015) addressed which TIs were associated with flashback memories, individual and work-related features which correlate with flashbacks, and the associated between flashbacks and anxiety, depression, and emotional exhaustion. The results indicated extreme PTSD prevalence in ER nurses with 65% reporting intrusive memories. Correlations include older age and work conflict (positive), working more consecutive days without time off (negative), and age, gender, relationship status, alcohol and drug consumption (none). Further results indicated recent resuscitations having a 4x increase in PTSD occurrence. Further studies were conducted by Lavoie et al. (2016), where factors intrinsic to the nurse and organization, risk factors for PTSD, and traits that influence the symptoms were studied. Results indicated child death as the most serious and frequent TI. Positive correlations with grief-type TIs in past year, intense fear, helplessness, horror, neuroticism, avoidance coping strategy (weak), negative correlations with previous TI experience, extraversion, seeking social support and problem-solving coping strategies (weak), and no correlation with gender, age, work experience were also noted. Further research done by Bromet et al. (2015) addressed the
Some of the world’s most-loved and well-known superheroes include Superman, Batman, and Spiderman. However great these superheroes may appear, their fictional stories also include stressors that they face everyday, such as the villains that they encounter and the pressure of being a hero and an everyday citizen. In this way, stress often negatively impacts the lives of the ones who watch over every neighborhood, every street, and every house. Such is the job of a police officer. Because stress has become an important topic in the community of law enforcement, things that are commonly discussed are the causes of stress, the effects of stress, and the handling of stress in the lives of police officers.
The most difficult thing for most first responders to accept is the reality of living with posttraumatic stress disorder (Gilmartin, K. M., 2002). The traumatic event and the disorder change the way they see the world. The world changes from the way they saw it before the event to a dangerous, unpredictable, and threatening place (Gilmartin, K. M., 2002). The one thing first responders need to do in order to renew their corrupted mentality of the planet, is to be removed from their world and work life from time to time (Shin, L. M., 2009). Living love, selflessly giving, and serving others truly does heal the spirit and are extremely powerful in overcoming depression, isolation, emotional pain, and self-destructive tendencies (Shin, L. M., 2009).
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was first founded in American soldiers who had been traumatized during wars since it can develop when someone has been in or has seen a traumatic event and has felt, according to Nancy Davis, “intense fear, helplessness, or horror”. Many officers can get PTSD from life threatening situations such as, shootings, fires and car accidents. These incidents can cause the development of a more severe PTSD which is more difficult to treat than less severe cases. Police officers have high stress levels during the course of their work day. This stress can affect their families and also their work ethic. High stress levels can be another factor for PTSD because when officers have seen disturbing events it can cause them to stress out because of that event. Many officers can suffer from diffe...
Every year communities struggle each year around the nation with issues of life safety. In 2012, the nation’s fire departments responded to 31,854,000 responses that resulted in the deaths 0f 2,855 civilians and injuring 16,500 causing an estimated $12,427 million dollars in damage. (United States Fire Administration, 2014) These incidents put at risk 345,950 career and 783,300 volunteer firefighters that resulted in the deaths of 81 individuals (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2013) and nearly 70,000 reported injuries. ( Karter & Molis, 2013) These numbers represent incidents that are determined to be in the line of duty but do not take into consideration the long-term health risk issues that may develop. Evidence shows that he hazards associated with Fire and Emergency Services are consistent across the board whether paid or volunteer and jeopardize the lives and health of each individual, placing administrative and physical control measures reduces this risk to firefighter within an organization. While it is impossible to eliminate the hazards firefighters face, it is important to identify these hazards as the first step in reducing the potential for loss of life and wellbeing both physically and mentally.
The fire service has many years of traditions. Many of those traditions are good. However, some of those traditions are hurting and in some cases lead to the death of fire fighters. After finishing my research paper, I hope brings to attention that changes are needed in the fire service. The audience I am reaching out to are my fell fire fighters and fire administration. After reading, will look at current policies and procedures, and fire tactics on the fire ground. Fire administration will take the appropriate action to make the fire service more discipline. I will be taking an investigation look into different incidents that have accorded on fire ground scenes. Could have the injury and or death be avoided?
While going through training, I began to realize this is a career that is can be emotionally overwhelming. You must be able to cope with mental stress, and stay prepared at all times. Just the fact that you don’t know what you are going to encounter throughout one day can be stressful. Knowing this you must learn how to deal with your emotions, whether it’s through group therapy or just relaxing after work. People are going to depend on you when they’re in a dangerous situation and you must be strong and help them when they are in need. To help others you must also be physically and menta...