Volunteer Fire Fighter Drowns After Being Thrown From His Swiftwater Rescue Boat – West Virginia

Details

• Personal Author:
  Tarley, Jay L. ; Loflin, Murrey E.
• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation and Prevention Program (FFFIPP)
• Description:
  Death in the Line of Duty…a Summary of a NIOSH Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation
  
  On March 13, 2010, at approximately 0615 hours, a 32-year-old volunteer fire fighter drowned after being thrown from a boat when it crashed into a bridge and capsized. The fire fighter was part of a swiftwater rescue team which included his captain and his chief. The chief was operating the boat as the crew attempted to make a fourth trip upstream to rescue civilians who were trapped by fast rising flood waters. The crew was navigating up an eddy created from the water flooding a street when the motor struck something under the water and diverted them out into the main current. The chief could not steer the motor, nor did it react when he put it into reverse. The boat slammed into a concrete bridge. The back of the boat was immediately pushed down into the water and the bow of the boat flipped up and over the stern throwing all three fire fighters into the frigid water. Two of the fire fighters were able to escape the hydraulics created from the flood water rushing against the arched concrete stanchion on the side of the bridge. The victim was recovered six days later approximately 4 miles from where the boat had capsized. Contributing Factors: 1. Insufficient risk assessment analysis
  
  2. Personal protective ensemble not appropriate for cold water or flood conditions. Key Recommendations: 1. Ensure that fire fighters wear the appropriate PPE for the environment encountered. Additionally, authorities having jurisdiction should conduct a hazard and risk assessment analysis of their response areas to determine what resources are needed to conduct technical search and rescue at swiftwater incidents.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Accident Prevention Accidents Accidents, Occupational Cold Temperature Emergency Responders Environmental Exposure Environmental Pollution Firefighters Occupational Health Personal Protective Equipment Risk Assessment Safety Staff Development

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• Keywords:
  Accident-analysis Accident-prevention Cold-environments Cold-weather-operations Emergency-responders Environmental-exposure Environmental-hazards Fire-fighters Injuries Injury-prevention OSHA Region 3 Personal-protection Personal-protective-equipment Rescue-workers Risk-analysis Safety-practices Surveillance Training Traumatic-injuries Work-practices

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• FACE - Firefighter:
  Cause of Death: Trauma ; Water: Search & Rescue
• Series:
  Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation and Prevention Program (FFFIPP)
• Subseries:
  Death in the Line of Duty Report
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHFFFACEF201009
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Field Study ; Report
• Place as Subject:
  West Virginia ; OSHA Region 3
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSR - Division of Safety Research
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-11
• Contributor:
  Ray, Slim
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20038385
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB2011-105260
• Citation:
  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 F2010-09, 2011 Jan ; :1-11
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2011
• NORA Priority Area:
  Services: Public Safety
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  92 - Public Administration - (NAICS)
• Start Date:
  2010/03/13
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:653597993f7aa427443bf4ddaf1c29084aa1450dd4137f8299bc306a7b08e66e2b1006c0dd78a8dc167bde0024906376764c366dd601de90b928345d5340bd57
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/163529/cdc_163529_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.04 MB ]