- firefighters are 200-300% more likely to have a heart attack than other public safety workers (who are probably still more at risk than the general population)
- heart attack is the #1 cause of death among firefighters, not burns or toxin/smoke inhalation
- NEJM reported that firefighters are 136x more likely to have one while fighting a fire than when they are on "non-emergency duty"
- it's attributed to the fact that many are overweight, out of shape, and not very healthy-- they're at higher risk for coronary artery disease, so the increased stress of work increases their risk for heart attacks immensely
what's interesting to me is that their job doesn't seem to be the proximate cause, it's their lifestyles. many have high cholesterol, heart disease, etc, which are all preventable/treatable with healthy lifestyle choices. conclusion: if you have a high stress job, you should be extra careful about how you live your life to prevent developing those risks...
yet no one is making this connection, so fire departments aren't making more stringent restrictions regarding the health of their personnel.
when I was a medic, I found out that a fd allowed a firefighter to complete a strenuous agility test even though he had come with extremely high blood pressure. he nearly passed out halfway through and we ended up taking him to the hospital because they allowed him to do the course anyway...
makes no sense.
No comments:
Post a Comment