2023-03-13 Standardization Committee Minutes

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NEW BUSINESS Agenda Item 1: Standardize the purchase of Star Trac 8 Series TRX with LCD Treadmills. Members of the committee reviewed the written request and attachment submitted from the County Fire Department. Mr. Chadwick — I would like to read from a research paper I turned in. This is to support the justification for standardizing the purchase of these treadmills. On August 8, 2020, a 49-yr old male career FEO was performing CPR when he suffered cardiac arrest. heard the radio traffic requesting an additional medic unit to the scene. Not knowing the second patient was our own, I initiated response. We lost our own and I lost a good friend. Tragically, this lost was preventable and the likelihood this could occur again within our department and will occur in future departments across the country as sudden cardiac deaths is the most common cause offirefighter fatality according to N10SH. Recommendations from NIOSH reports include providing annual medical examinations consistent with NFPA 1582, consider performing exercise stress test on personnel with risk factors, institute a mandatory fitness and wellness program consistent with NFPA 1853, perform annual physical ability test consistent with NFPA 1500 and perform autopsies on fire service pet personnel and expand access to critical incident stress counseling to members of the department. While Hawaii fire department made ajinv reactionary changes di(e to our own line of ditty death, we stopped short of an acting impactful change. Our department had a wellness fitness program but dite to lack of funding, this program shut down approx. 6 years ago. The International Association of Firefighters has revamped their 1AFF17AFC Peer Fitness Trainer program, now titled, Fit to Thrive. Additionally, NFPA 1583 Standard on Health -Related Fitness Programs for Fire Department Members states the Fire Chief shall appoint a Health & Fitness Coordinator and all members shall participate in an annual fitness assessment tinder the supervision of this coordinator. To prevent future death and disability, Hawaii Fire Department needs to implement this program. Mr. Chadwick - We did have this wellness fitness program purchased through a 2008 AFG Grant and the department purchased $200,000 worth of equipment and stood up a peer fitness team. The objective of the team was to go out to the stations, do an evaluation on the personnel and determine on an individual basis of what their goals were; be a faster runner, lose weight, etc. and provide them tools to achieve those goals. In addition to treadmills, we purchased dual cross machines and several assessment materials. Of the $200,000 in equipment, in March 2009 we purchased twenty-two treadmills at a cost of $3,543 each. I was told it was half -off due to the volume we acquired. In 2010, while working at a station, we called a repair man in, and he stated he's never seen the treadmills before and had to do research and get back to us. In the meantime, I called the 800 # on the placard for Free►notion and they walked me through fixing it. I became a contractor to do treadmill repairs for Freemotion. For the last 14 years, I had all twenty-two treadmills working at the fire stations. Unfortunately, they no longer have parts, and we have twenty-two failing treadmills.