Safety Committee Meeting Minutes-February 2013

February 12th @ DFES

I.  Call To Order

At 1901, Chairman Richard Prather called the February meeting to order. Attendees were Chairmen Richard Prather and Richard Hopkins, Secretary Dixie Pierce, and members Steve Mohl, Bob Moncrief, Nathan Sauser, Matthew Ryan, Sam Sarvey, Bryan Stallings, Rick Hemphill, Travis Keefer, Jeb Laughman, Harry Gossard, Charles Baker, and Keli Smith.

*Becky Maginnis was an excused absence

Motion made to approve November minutes. Approved. November minutes may now be hung in stations.

Motion made to approve January meeting minutes. Approved. January minutes may now be hung in stations.

II.  Old Business

A.  Safety Roundtable

Doc said that the jr probie members at Co. 4 were observed washing apparatus and had placed wet floor signs all around the apparatus on all four sides.

Dixie brought up the two fires she was on a couple weeks ago where she was on two back to back nights of fires in which she transported a FF each night from the respective fires. The fire that was in Washington County, several people in the room were familiar with due to the abnormal nature of the circumstances of the injury. The FF was on the roof for a chimney fire and was wearing full PPE and when he placed a pike pole into the chimney there was a flash and the fire actually burned almost through his Shelby FF leather gloves and gave the FF 1st and 2nd degree burns on the outside of both hands. These gloves are still not rated for direct flame impingement and it is preferred that a heavier, better rated gloves are kept with your chimney fire equipment. All his gear was confiscated and an investigation is being done. It was requested that if anyone knew of the outcome to please present it to the committee when the report is finished. The second fire was a double fatal in Frederick county and the FF injury was minor burns to the neck and hands from being too quick to try to save the kids and not remembering to properly put on all gear.

Due to these types of calls, discussion ensued as to the role we, as the Health and Safety Committee play in helping with these types of situations where FFs are injured. It was discussed that the investigations and root cause analysis need to start at the department with their own in house ISO. It was further suggested that we work to set up a defined set of procedures for investigating these things. If the department ISO and/or Chief needs, we would be available as a committee to help them do the in house investigation, and once complete, review it as a committee. Richard Prather felt that something like that we could delegate to the Safety Officer Committee or ISOs. If we felt that there was value in getting this information out to the other departments to prevent another type of injury like such, we would than distribute the information to the other county, and if warranted, other jurisdictions’, departments. All names and departments would be kept confidential at that point. This would help disburse the information out county wide and as such, help “engineer out” the threats. Use it as a teaching tool, leaning from each other’s mistakes. Bob Moncrief wanted to know how we plan to disseminate the information such as we learn it. Prather told him that’s part of our plans this year, to figure out what will be the best way to pass information on.

B.  Selective Update/Report

Since Becky was unable to be at this meeting Jeb Laughman took the opportunity to let us know what the focus is for Washington County from Selective. These are areas of opportunities for us as a county to improve on. This year Jeb and Richard Prather want this committee to take the “rubber to the road”. This will be a slow process, there is a lot of information to pick through and process. If certain departments are seen to have loss trends using the ISO/HSO/Health and Safety Committee to see what can be done to reduce or relieve the issues.

1.  Physical Compliance

-Needs to be 95% or above. Now realistically 95% may be the best we can ever really get because of the dynamics of a station. You’ve got new people coming in constantly and other members dropping affiliations/educational leave/retiring, etc. So if a department’s roster isn’t constantly updated by the person that handles the PO for the physicals in that station, inactive members still showing as active personnel and not removed from the rosters, whom consequently are not getting physicals, still cost the department percentage points.

These physicals are of utmost importance because they take out the idiopathic issues and thus, help “engineer out” FF’s that are not fit for active duty.

2.  “Expanding the Safety Committee”

I. Meeting with the stations- Jeb would like to meet with each of the stations in the county. Wants to meet with preferably a knowledgeable member of the station that can answer his questions. Would do the walk through, one station a month before our monthly meeting, would require about 45 minutes. This would not be for any sort of formal insurance purposes. Just so that he could have a better understanding of what our setups are.

II.Equipment Inventory-Jeb and Becky feel that there is a huge “area of opportunity” as far as cataloging and inventorying stations equipment. Feels there will be a very positive effect from this “project”. Wants each piece of equipment photographed and recorded for insurance purposes. They feel that doing this helps you “discover” equipment you didn’t know you had (including duplicates you could donate to a fellow station to help each other out), discover what you didn’t have and need to get, and may help drive down the premiums by being better able to plan expected replacement and maintenance schedules. Jeb and the committee and will help stations do this and Rick says he can have a standardized format in about two weeks’ time. Jeb said he would be willing to meet the member of any station asking for help anytime as long as it meant getting it done. The program Rick would write would have to be installed individually on each stations computer.

III.Spotting, backing, near misses, will all be smaller items that will be addressed this year. This year is where we will finally begin doing something about these issues and not just talking about it this year.

3.  Lag Time

If first reports of injury (FRI) are not filed right away, if it all, Becky may not find out about an injury until about 80 days later when Becky receives a bill from the Emergency Department or occupational clinic. Everything must be reported. It is the responsibility of the injured to make the claim to the ISO, HSO, or Chief as soon feasible and for them to provide the FRI to Becky who reports them to Selective immediately. If on a multi-jurisdictional incident, the Incident Commander will be your point of contact to relay that information to Becky. The deal with all injuries needing reported is twofold. One, it leaves a paper trail in case you have an injury stemming from an injury that happened a while ago. You would have a difficult time proving injury from something that happened months ago and you never filed, and in the insurance world, if you didn’t report it, it didn’t happen. Two, it helps Becky to better track trends and may protect our premium costs by allowing us to address the loss trends and claims. Reports can be a “report only” claim, where you don’t seek medical attention; you are just reporting a possible injury. ALL accidents need reported too. A “gentle nudge” of a bumper cover where there appears to be no physical damage still needs a FRI equivalent done. If the claim is nothing more than a report only claim, it will not count against our “experience mod”.

For 2012, 90% of all injuries in Washington County were reported 14 days or later. Jeb’s compromise between Selective and himself was to see lag time reduced by 20% this year. And by the way, “lag time” will be Jebs second most used catchphrase behind “engineer out” this year, so learn to love it now.

C.  ISO/Safety Officer Program

Nathan said the ISO start date is set for April 1st. Once vehicles are road ready, we will be prepared to go to the stations and do the education part. Roy is entering the safety 100 and 200s into the CAD system splitting the county up into coverage areas. A letter has been sent to all companies asking for donations of equipment to help furnish the new ISO vehicles. This has caused some rumblings of resistance from the county/companies…resistance is futile, we are here to stay.

D.  Website

Rick said the wcvfra.org website has a safety committee page and is developing a page for the county ISOs (any member needing the log in and password reminder please email me or Rick). If a member needs to post something to the page, they can go through Rick, until certain issues are resolved which will allow any member to post under our page. Allows access to a central site for members to view all the information for members who can’t download certain documents. All our approved minutes will also now be posted to the counties approved minute’s page from all county wide meetings, which the public has access to.

E.  Physicals (I know….here we go, AGAIN…but it’s important)

PO’s for physicals will be automatically generated based on birthdate of the member. Also, fit tests that were originally going to be seen if they could be added into the physical program have been denied for this calendar year. Extra money had already been added for Pertussis and Tetanus boosters. Health@Work wanted an extra $50 per person to do the fit tests. Rick says most companies still remain at a great compliance rate, while other members in charge of issuing PO’s are telling him that they are not being made aware of new member’s being voted in until three or four weeks later, which if you bring in two or three people in a month, that can swing a company’s compliance rate by several points. Again, reiterated that a watchful eye on the active members list is critical, especially for the smaller companies, to remember to erase your non active members, and send new members for their physicals as soon as possible to help keep the numbers good.

III.  New Business

A.  Fit Testing

Richard Hopkins has seen issues with the PortaCount fit test machine. It did not have different sized face pieces and elastic is stripped on the sizes that are there. Laptop doesn’t work correctly, parts missing, alcohol for the test contaminated, etc. It used to be that before the machine was lent out, that someone certified to operate the machine had to be present when the machine was in use at all times. There has been some debate that the machines are now going to stations that don’t even have any ‘certified’ personnel to operate them. Richard Prather will look into getting a refresher class for those that are allowed to run the machine, and see about getting another ‘certified’ class done. Also was suggested Hopkins draft up an addendum to the instructions (tips, tricks, and troubleshooting) that he and others have learned over the years. Also, possibly get members of this committee trained and let requesting stations know if they do not have certified personnel to run the PortaCount, than we can provide you with trained personnel. This would make the county a little more comfortable in purchasing a new machine for the safety of our fire fighters.

B.  Focus

It was suggested that we put together a one page bulleted “agenda” type letter to inform the companies on what we as a committee want to address for this year. That way companies were aware of what may be coming down the works. Sent to Chief Officers and Presidents.

C.  Spotter/Backer Classes

Jeb can spot train “on site”. Will work with some members in creating something with Jeb to physically give the Chiefs to let them know that we, as a committee, are doing something to stop the loss trends on backing accidents. Prather wants action done in the next 60 days and something on a DVD, a physical deliverable. This is going to be Matthews’s project.

D.  BLR Training

BLR training was looked into. It would cost the county about $10,000 to bring all the companies online or $1000 on a company to company basis.

IV.  Adjournment

Motion to adjourn and seconded at 20:24.

Respectfully Submitted; Dixie L. Pierce