Research out of Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health determined that emergency medical technicians and paramedics are 14 times more likely to be violently injured on the job than the firefighters they work alongside. By comparing statistics gathered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency-funded Firefighter Injury Research and Safety Trends (FIRST) project and speaking with a group of paramedics who had been injured by patients, the Drexel researchers found that assault-related injuries are often not reported, not acknowledged by administration and therefore they are internalized by the workers as a “part of the job.
- PUB DATE: 1/25/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Drexel University

Augusta firefighters are due even more back pay after city officials acknowledged Friday a software glitch shorted them a portion of overtime pay for 11 months last year. Fire Chief Chris James told personnel in a Friday letter, obtained by The Augusta Chronicle, that a software module correcting a previous miscalculation of overtime pay “did not carry over and perform as designed” when the city upgraded payroll software last February.
- PUB DATE: 1/25/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: augusta chronicle

The Independent Volunteer Fire Company and five of its members have filed a lawsuit, alleging town officials violated their civil rights and state law in handling allegations against them. The suit against the town, filed in Atlantic County Superior Court, alleges that Station 2 firefighters were denied due process and that town officials broke the law in suspending them.
- PUB DATE: 1/25/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: press of atlantic city

The family of a Fresno paramedic who was killed in the Skylife air ambulance helicopter crash in Kern County has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Rogers Helicopters, claiming it was negligent in the maintenance and operation of the Bell 407 aircraft that crashed in a field nine miles east of McFarland last month.
- PUB DATE: 1/25/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: fresno bee

A firefighter was killed while responding to a patient with a seizure Friday morning in Pulaski County, a spokesman with the sheriff's office said. The East Pulaski firefighter, whose name was not immediately released, responded to a report on Dortch Loop Road outside North Little Rock around 5 a.m.
- PUB DATE: 1/22/2016 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: NWAOnline - Northwest Arkansas News