On March 28, 2008, a 33-year-old male volunteer fire fighter (the victim) was fatally injured after the tanker truck he was driving left the roadway and overturned. The victim was enroute to a structure fire, took an unfamiliar route, and failed to negotiate a 90DG curve to the right. The tanker left the roadway rolling onto the driver's side then slid through a ditch into a row of pine trees crushing the cab. The victim was extricated by emergency personnel, air-lifted to a local medical center, and later pronounced dead. NIOSH investigators concluded that, in order to minimize the risk of similar occurrences, fire departments should: (1) ensure that tankers are driven at a safe and reasonable speed; (2) ensure that fire fighters are familiar with the location of the roads in their coverage areas; (3) consider staffing tankers with a minimum of two fire fighters; (4) consider supplying responding units with maps or verbal directions to incident scenes, using computer aided dispatch (CAD) or a global positioning system (GPS) device; (5) develop oversight of the preventive maintenance program for fire apparatus.
Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) Report: Volunteer Fire Fighter Dies in a Tanker Crash in Louisiana
2008
15 pages
Report
No indication
English
Environmental Health & Safety , Public Health & Industrial Medicine , Police, Fire, & Emergency Services , Fire Services, Law Enforcement, & Criminal Justice , Transportation Safety , Fire fighters , Tanker trucks , Emergency responders , Motor vehicle accidents , Fatalities , Louisiana , Fire fighting equipment , Traumatic injuries , Accident prevention , Drivers , Age factors , Safety practices , Volunteers , Motor vehicle operators