The Risks Fire Police Take

On-Duty Deaths of Fire-Police Officers in the United States 1991 - 2010 From 1991 through 2010, 68 fire-police officers died in the U.S. of injuries suffered while on duty. “Fire-police officer” is a category of firefighter that is not commonly used throughout the U.S. In fact, 75 percent of the deaths occurred in just two states -- Pennsylvania (30 deaths) and New York (22 deaths). The other states where deaths occurred were New Jersey (6 deaths), Maryland (5 deaths), Connecticut (2 deaths), and Maine, North Carolina and Rhode Island with one death each.

All of the victims were members of volunteer fire departments and all were male. The victims ranged in age from 41 to 82 years, with a median age of 67. Most of the fire-police officers who were killed over this 20-year period were assigned to traffic control (60 percent) and this is reflected in the types of incidents at which the fatal injuries occurred.

Of the 68 victims, 25 were at non-fire emergencies (e.g., motor vehicles crashes), 21 were responding to or returning from emergency calls, 16 were working at fire scenes, one was at a training exercise and five were involved with other on-duty activities. Of the 68 victims, 51 suffered sudden cardiac death, 12 were struck by vehicles, three died in collisions while responding to alarms, one collapsed and fell, striking his head and one died of an infection when an open wound was contaminated by flood waters.

Available medical documentations showed that most of the 51 sudden cardiac death victims had existing health issues, including prior heart attacks or bypass surgery, hypertension and severe arteriosclerotic heart disease.

All 12 of the fire-police officers who were struck by vehicles were directing traffic or assigned to traffic control at the time. Those deaths will be discussed in more detail in a separate section of this report.

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