By Terry Ritter
Fire and emergency service departments are high-reliability organizations (HROs) in that there are inherent risks and vulnerabilities.
Our job as fire officers is to help keep our personnel safe by identifying those risks and taking measures to reduce vulnerabilities. An HRO is any organization where there is an emphasis on people, process, and priorities working and safety is a concern. Improvements are gained and risks minimized through factual and complete data being collected, whereas factors and sequencing may be flawed as well as measures of prevention without root cause analysis.1
Crash Data Tools
To help our emergency vehicle operators improve, we can collect and assess emergency vehicle crashes with a more detailed and personal approach using different tools. One, a crash data collection tool, was adapted from the Model Minimum Uniform Crash Criteria2 and can be filled out as soon as possible after an emergency vehicle crash as an incident report form. It addresses human, vehicle, and physical environmental features. Meanwhile, a crash data analysis tool, when applied, analyzes the human, vehicle, physical, and psychosocial environment prior to a crash, at the time of the crash, and post crash.
Consider the following: An apparatus engineer (AE) wakes at 0330 for an alarm call and reports with a crew to the apparatus and goes en route. The crew departs the fire station at 0331, and the AE pulls into the roadway and abruptly comes to a halt as a burning order is noted. Emergency lights are activated, but the fire engine is struck by an oncoming car.
To use a data collection tool, the officer would simply pull out the crash data collection tool and mark the appropriate boxes regarding the driver, vehicle, and physical environment. The tool is designed to collect descriptors of events that can be drawn from with interviews to portray the event. Then, through use of the crash data analysis tool and interviews, you may find out the following:
■ Prior to the event, the AE had not slept for nearly 40 hours.
■ The AE takes medications where heavy machinery should not be operated.
■ The vehicle had brake work performed fewer than 12 hours earlier.
■ The AE reported to the officer that the vehicle did not seem to be operating or braking as it usually did.
■ The maintenance division had not been notified of any difficulties by the officer.
■ The AE advised the officer at 1900 the previous evening that a “check engine” light appeared.
■ Immediately after the incident, the AE stepped away from the apparatus, throwing tools and equipment and cursing at the officer.
■ The roadway at the scene of the crash had been closed to allow one lane of traffic at 0200 on that date.
Using a crash data analysis tool with root cause questioning and continuing to ask “why” can help identify true primary causative factors such as:
■ Creating a policy addressing limited sleep or