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Disabling job injuries among urban EMS providers
1New Jersey Trauma Center, Department of Surgery, New Jersey Medical School, UMDNJ-University Hospital, Newark 07103-2406, USA.
Objective:
Nationwide data were collected concerning serious, disabling injuries requiring hospitalization (SDIH) or deaths among urban emergency medical services (EMS) providers.
Design And Setting:
A mail survey of EMS systems was conducted among the 200 most populated U.S. cities.
Participants:
Participants were training and operations officers of urban EMS systems.
Measurements And Main Results:
Ninety forms (45%) were returned with 88 evaluable (44%). There were 81 SDIHs for a rate of one in 31,616 dispatches. No deaths were reported. Body parts most frequently injured were the hand (22%), head (19%), foot (16%), and eye (14%). Although 90% of fire-based EMS systems (fire-EMS) provided helmets, eye protection, safety shoes, and gloves, less than half (45%) of nonfire-EMS did so. Three (4%) SDIHs resulted from acts of violence.
Conclusion:
Occupational injuries of EMS personnel are at a serious level. Fire-based EMS systems experienced a higher rate of hand SDIHs despite the provision of protective equipment. Few nonfire-EMS staff are provided with safety equipment, which may have resulted in a relatively high number of head and hand SDIHs. Fire-EMS medical directors need to take an active role in verifying that protective equipment is adequate and appropriate to allow the performance of field EMS duties without being too cumbersome. Medical directors of nonfire-EMS must be advocates for the provision of basic protective equipment aimed at mitigating SDIHs of EMS staff.