Workers' Compensation: Northeastern United States

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Latest firefighter injury report shows that nearly 70,000 injuries occurred in the line of duty in 2012

Today's post was shared by Safe Healthy Workers and comes from fireservice.blog.nfpa.org

NFPA released the latest edition of its U.S. Firefighter Injury Report, highlighting data on injuries sustained by firefighters on duty that was collected from fire departments responding to the 2012 National Fire Experience Survey.
Firefighter injuries have declined over the past three decades, hovering around roughly 100,000 from the early 1980’s through early 1990’s. In 2012, 69,400 firefighter injuries occurred in the line of duty.

Of those injuries, 31,490 (45.4 percent) occurred during fireground operations, with the leading causes reported as overexertion, straining (27.5 percent) and falling, slipping, and jumping (23.2 percent).
The Northeast also reported a higher number of fireground injuries per 100 fires than other regions of the country.

The major types of injuries received during fireground operations were:

strains, sprains, and muscular pain (55.2 percent)
followed by wounds, cuts, bleeding, and bruising (12.2 percent)
thermal stress (5.8 percent)
and burns (5.7 percent)

An estimated 13,820 occurred during other on-duty activities, including:

4,190 while responding to or returning from an incident
7,140 during training activities
and 12,760 occurring at non-fire emergency incidents
Strains, sprains, and muscular pain accounted for 58.5 percent of all non-fireground injuries

In addition to injuries, there were 8,150 exposures to infectious diseases, and 19,200 exposures to hazardous conditions. Read the latest NFPA Journal article on this newly...

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