Career fire fighter dies after single-family-residence house fire - South Carolina.
Authors
Cortez K; Mezzanotte T; Braddee R
Source
Morgantown, WV: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, FACE F2001-27, 2002 Jan; :1-6
On June 16, 2001, a 22-year-old male career fire fighter sustained injuries while fighting a residential house fire that subsequently resulted in his death. Central Dispatch received notification of a smoke detector alarm at a single-family residence. After several apparatus had arrived on the scene, the victim arrived in Tanker 34, donned his gear, and approached the house. He was met by another fire fighter who told him the fire conditions. The victim proceeded to the garage area, and shortly thereafter, a partial roof and garage door collapse occurred, trapping him. A civilian bystander notified the Incident Commander (IC) that a fire fighter was down. The IC ran to the garage area and helped pull the victim out from the debris. Emergency medical personnel moved the victim to the street and began administering first aid. The victim was flown to a regional hospital where he remained until his death on July 12, 2001. The NIOSH investigators concluded that, to minimize the risk of similar occurrences, fire departments should: 1. ensure that adequate numbers of staff are available to immediately respond to emergency incidents; 2. ensure that at least four fire fighters are on the scene before initiating interior fire fighting operations at a structural fire - two in, two out; 3. ensure that Incident Command maintains the role of directing operations on the fire scene, and not become involved in fire fighting efforts; 4. ensure proper safety measures are implemented when accessing a structure through the garage door.
Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot attest to the accuracy of a non-federal website.
Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website.
You will be subject to the destination website's privacy policy when you follow the link.
CDC is not responsible for Section 508 compliance (accessibility) on other federal or private website.
For more information on CDC's web notification policies, see Website Disclaimers.
CDC.gov Privacy Settings
We take your privacy seriously. You can review and change the way we collect information below.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
Cookies used to make website functionality more relevant to you. These cookies perform functions like remembering presentation options or choices and, in some cases, delivery of web content that based on self-identified area of interests.
Cookies used to track the effectiveness of CDC public health campaigns through clickthrough data.
Cookies used to enable you to share pages and content that you find interesting on CDC.gov through third party social networking and other websites. These cookies may also be used for advertising purposes by these third parties.
Thank you for taking the time to confirm your preferences. If you need to go back and make any changes, you can always do so by going to our Privacy Policy page.