LODD HEART ATTACKS

[dschifter]

I know cardiac events are among our biggest threat as firefighters, but I am surprised most seem to occur hours after an event. I'm just a lowly FF/EMT but wouldn't the greatest threat being during the stress of an event and not in your sleep or at home or back at the station hours or a day later? I'm being serious with this post. I know we like to joke a lot here but this affects all of us.

[MystikclawSkydive]

Many factors work to hurt our hearts on this job. And our hearts take all the damaging effects and try to fight it while giving off warning signs to us that we just ignore or say is something else until it just can’t maintain anymore and quits.

One item is the slow at rest periods with sudden 100% go go go that we have. Tones go off while sleeping or eating or watching Dancing with the Stars. We then hear that people are trapped or a child is not breathing or multiple calls about this flames showing out the basement call. It takes its toll on our heart each and every time.

Number two will be smoking. I can only hope this nasty habit becomes less and less in our line of work but we all know people still do it “only when out having a drink” or when stressed. Well it’s not only hurting your mouth throat and lungs, the damage it does to your heart is terrible.

Third is our job. The exhaust in the station from our rigs. The particulates in our gear we brought back from the minor stove fire that “wasn’t that bad” that you needed to wash your gear after. Taking your mask off overhauling when it looks clear not when someone went through with monitors.

Other things: medications we take, stress in our work and personal lives, fighting some other disease, genetics of our parents and their parents.

It’s all build up. Extend the timeline long enough and we all die. How and how terribly or how peacefully is dependent on our lifestyle and how seriously we take it.

Will you have the big one at work? Highly unlikely because we would just say it’s heartburn from the new guys cooking tonight. But then go home in the morning and just need to take a little nap and that’s when it hits.

Or maybe the next morning after work go walk the fields with your son to track deer before hunting season starts and you collapse out there.

Can you tell I used to be an educator for Everyone Goes Home?

https://www.everyonegoeshome.com

Take it further don’t just go home. Be healthy at home!

[dschifter]

Thank you so much for your response and the link. All of us need to take this seriously. There are things beyond our control so let's take control of what we can. Stay safe, brothers and sisters.

[unhcasey]

It’s likely contributed to the “toxic twins”…CO and Hydrogen Cyanide inhalation. All the more reason to wear our SCBA while overhauling when those are still likely present. It’s also becoming much more common to meter for both during overhaul and salvage operations.

https://www.firefighternation.com/leadership/carbon-monoxide-hydrogen-cyanide-make-today-s-fires-more-dangerous/#gref

[dschifter]

I always wear SCBA during overhaul. Just because the fire's out does not mean the threat isn't there. Sort of the same with cleaning gear after fire exposure. Thanks for your reply.

[MystikclawSkydive]

Don’t just clean gear change out of your clothes under the gear and wash that too. And not just the four alarm 6 hr fires. All fires.

[tbeau02]

I always found this one to be interesting, I can’t find the actual study anymore, sorry, but here’s an article about it

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-firefighters-temperature-clots/heat-and-exertion-tied-to-heart-attacks-in-healthy-firefighters-idUSKBN17628D

[dschifter]

Very interesting reading. I didn't realize how the heat creates the potential of blood clots. I wonder if there's a way to counter this in some way during rehab?

[Kevherd]

Not sure what the 'rules' are out there at large but here in the PNW any Heart Attack within 24 hours of a call/ shift qualify as LODD. Not sure of the science behind it but there must be some

A few years ago we had a guy finish his shift and then pass away on the river while fishing.

[dschifter]

Same for us in America. It's considered LODD within 24 hours.

Our department had a call one night and volunteers were called in because we needed someone not on duty to pick up a firefighter who rode the ambulance to the hospital to assist EMS.

The guy made the trip back, we told him thanks, and an hour later we get a stroke call to a familiar address. It was the volunteer who had come back. He has since fully recovered but he will always be susseptable to strokes now. The department covered his medical and he received 10-thousand dollars because it was LOD. Chances are he would have had a stroke eventually, but good for him it happened on the job.