Keeping It Safe
By Robert Tutterow

Coming Soon: Seat Belt Monitoring
Seat belt monitoring. You knew it was coming sooner or later – actually, it should have happened much sooner. So, effective January 2009, all fire apparatus must have a system that not only monitors seat belt usage, but stores the data for later access. It will be an enhanced version of what has been found in automobiles for many years.

Before we get into the specifics of how the system must be designed, a little bit of history is appropriate. The failure of firefighters to use restraint systems has been written about, reported on, and discussed until there is little if anything that hasn’t been said or written. Advocacy has been like “beating a dead horse!”

The NFPA Technical Committee on Fire Apparatus realized that technology was probably going to be more effective than anything else. Many have stated that technology is not the answer to reducing the number of firefighter fatalities and injuries. They insist that behavior modification is the answer. They are definitely right. However, technology can do a lot to help modify human behavior.

From 1977 to 1987 (1977 was when NFPA started keeping such data), 41 firefighters died from falling off apparatus. They were falling off rear steps and out of open jump seat areas. Since 1987, eight firefighters have died from falls off apparatus. Four of those eight died from 1989 to 1991. What happened in the late eighties and early nineties to cause this change? Was it human behavior and awareness? Maybe, but something more tangible also occurred. In 1987, NFPA 1901 issued a tentative interim amendment that required seating and seat belts for the maximum number of firefighters that were to ride.

Then in 1991, NFPA 1901 was revised to require fully enclosed cabs for the driver and crew areas. This was a change in design – technology actually – that forced a change in human behavior. Pause for a moment and try to imagine the number of firefighter fatalities and injuries we would have today if we still rode tailboards and used open seating without benefit of seatbelts.

Seatbelt monitoring systems, like the one recently introduced by Fire Research Corporation (FRC), will be a NFPA requirement on all new apparatus built in 2009 and forward.

Without doubt, this change was very positive. However, it was still up to the human behavior element of that change for actual seat belt usage. From 1977 to 2006, NFPA reported 406 firefighter fatalities while responding to/returning from calls.

The Big Problem
Here’s the big problem: 76 percent of these firefighters were NOT belted; 76.4 percent were volunteer firefighters; 14 percent were career firefighters; 8.6 percent were contractors or employees of land management agencies; and the remaining 1 percent were military or industrial firefighters.

What type vehicles were they riding? 37.7 percent were in their POVs; 22.7 percent were in tankers; 21.7 percent were in engines/pumpers; 6.4 percent were in ambulances/rescues; 2.2 percent were in ladders; and 9.4 percent were in other public service vehicles.

With the history of a success story and the likelihood that human behavior modification will not occur soon, the NFPA Apparatus Committee once again looked at technology to help with seat belt usage. The committee was armed with the 16 Life Safety Initiatives of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, which includes: “ Number 7. Utilize available technology where it can produce higher levels of health and safety;” and, “Number 16. Safety must be a primary consideration in the design of apparatus and equipment.” The support was strong enough to require a monitoring system.

Audible Warning Device
What will this system entail?
It must have an “audible warning device that can be heard at all seated positions designed to be occupied while the vehicle is in motion.” It also must have a “visual display visible to the driver showing each seating position with green/red illumination.” The system is designed to prevent buckling the seat belt and sitting on the seat belt or tucking it out of the way. The lighted display must have a series of lights to indicate whether the seat is occupied and its passenger belted.

The display will show a green light for every seat that has an occupant with belts properly fastened. It will show red for a seat buckled with no occupant and red again for a seat with an occupant who is not buckled. The display light will be dark if the seat is not occupied and unbuckled.

Moreover, the system must be tied to an on-board vehicle data recorder (VDR). Among a dozen or so items the VDR must read and store are “seat occupied status – occupied yes/no by position” and “seat belt status – buckled yes/no by position.” The data must be stored at a sampling rate in a 48-hour loop and have sufficient memory to record 100 engine hours of minute-by-minute data. The data must be downloadable by the end user. Look for more information about VDRs in the future.

Cultural Change
In addition to the two NFFF Life Safety Initiatives mentioned above, the new seat belt monitoring system also underscores the first two of the 16 initiatives. They are: “Number 1. Define and advocate the need for a cultural change within the fire service relating to safety, incorporating leadership, management, supervision, accountability and personal responsibility;” and “Number 2. Enhance the personal and organizational accountability for health and safety throughout the fire service.”

During the 30 years NFPA has tracked this type of data, there has actually been a decline in firefighter deaths, a decline in deaths by heart attacks, and a decline in incident deaths. Those trends have been paralleled by a decline in actual fires.
However, the number of calls has more than doubled during this time, thanks to EMS, hazmat, false alarms, special ops, and other types of calls. With the increased responses, there has not been a downward trend in firefighter fatalities while responding to or returning from fires. In fact, there are now several blocks of months where the number of firefighter fatalities on the fireground is less than while traveling to and from incidents.

Clearly the primary thing we can do to reduce this cause of fatalities is seat belt usage. The new technological requirements for seat belt monitoring will make a difference.

Editor’s Note: Robert Tutterow, who has 30 years in the fire service, is the Charlotte (N.C.) Fire Department health and safety officer. He is the chair of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Fire Department Apparatus Committee’s Safety Task Force Group and is on two other NFPA committees, the Structural and Proximity Firefighting Protective Ensemble Technical Committee and the Technical Correlating Committee for Fire and Emergency Services PPE.