No Excuses!

Good Afternoon, I hope everyone is doing well. I am going to cover a topic of excuse making that is coming out more within the fire service here lately with the great push in physical fitness and the importance of it.

 In 2014, 87 LODD and 41 of them where ruled Cardiovascular, Overexertion/Stress. That is 41% of the LODD caused from a preventable cause. If you look back the last five years the fire service is losing anywhere from 41% to 57% of the LODD each year to these preventable causes!

When is enough going to be enough? When are we as a service going to stop making excuses?

Why is it that you can go any weekend in any state in this country and take a fire department class or some type of training on every subject except for the main cause that is killing the most firefighters year after year?

The fire service as a whole has “accepted” the fact that it’s OK to allow these LODDs to continue year after year. Why? What is it going to take? One preventable death of a fellow brother or sister is too many. We have to stop turning the cheek and sweeping the issue under the rug.

The Health and overall wellness of the fire service needs to be made a priority and not a subject that everyone runs from. The fire service has one week a year for health and safety week! Really one week? Is that what you feel that your life and wellness is worth? One week! I am not saying that the health and safety week is a bad thing, what I’m saying is that the service needs to make the “change” to be more proactive with our member’s health and wellness.

The fire service culture has never had physical fitness as a standard within its history. I can remember as a kid going to my grandfather’s fire house and the only active thing the firefighters were doing was playing pool, 12oz curls (drinking beer) and smoking. They didn’t have fitness equipment in the station. They didn’t take a yearly physical.  Over a period of time and the changes within the fire service, issues that have been shown to make things better and safer for all members slowly become accepted.

The latest gear, equipment, apparatus, tools, and training to hit the fire scene and most proactive departments with the funding will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on these different components of the job. The majority of these same departments do not hold their members to a physical fitness standard, nor do they provide them with the fitness equipment to be prepared for the duty they signed up for. What good is that brand new gear, or new hand tools, or nice new truck if YOU the one that needs to be able to use those things is not physically capable or even ready to use them?

Why is the fitness of firefighters such a tough topic to bring up? Why are most members in the fire service so quick to find an excuse for getting fit?

As a firefighter that went from overweight to fit for the job and used the excuse card myself in the past.  People can and will  come up with every and all excuses in order to get out of something that they know they should be doing. In the fire service we have to stop making excuses for the overweight, obesity, unhealthy, unfit firefighters.

I have caught a lot of slack from some fellow firefighters about the statement of “Firefighters are Occupational Athletes”. This is the FACTS, look at what is asked of your body physically, mentally on a working incident. If you feel you shouldn't and don’t need to be in the best physical shape, always pushing yourself to be better physically and mentally then you signed up for the wrong career.  The days of sitting around the fire house and eating junk food and drinking gallons of soda in a shift need to go!

Unhealthy eating habits and sedentary lifestyles is what is killing the most firefighters every year and it will continue until each and every member that made the choice to be a firefighter/occupational athlete truly understands what is expected from you in the position you hold. Your rank doesn’t matter in this subject. From the top to the bottom, bottom to the top and everyone in the middle needs to take the health and wellness more importantly than stretching a hose line, pulling ceilings, giving medical care. Yeah I said it, your wellness and fitness is more important! When the fire service drops the LODDs down in the preventable category then we can worry about tweaking and working on the newest deployment technique for that hose line. If you cant physical do that over and over and over due to the fact that you are out of shape does it really matter?

No one decided when they joined the department they represent that they would die in the line of duty. I fully understand our job has risks that we have to take and be ready for. With that being said why are we adding to those risks when we can prevent them? No one is a HERO because they lost their life from being unfit to do the job they signed up for! I’m not taking anything from the brothers and sisters that gave the ultimate sacrifice of their lives in the line of duty, did they do everything they could to come home after that shift? It’s never talked about how the administration of departments with members that are unfit for duty and are still riding on engines or trucks or rescues are allowing these firefighters to commit suicide at the least if not putting the lives of co-workers, citizens in life danger as well. NO one wants to talk about implementing a change for these unfit folks. Educating them on why they need to make a lifestyle change and become healthier. It is part of their job! An unfit/unconditioned firefighter is not a personal problem anymore, it’s a company and department problem.  

With the cost of health insurance going through the roof for departments to maintain, the cost of losing a member to a preventable cause something has to change. I am glad to see more articles and groups come to light that want to help make the change our great service needs.

We all, everyone within the fire service no matter what your badge says needs to step up and make a change, not an EXCUSE!

I could list pages upon pages of excuses that I have heard within the fire service in regards to physical fitness and overall health and wellness. There is no point in that list.

If you think about anything other than being physically, mentally prepared for the unexpected at any time then you have yourself an EXCUSE!

Thanks for reading my rant, and remember they didn’t build the Great Wall of China in one day. Everything takes time, start today! No more excuses!

 J.Brahm
1^st Due Fit.