Abstract

Firefighters are required to wear personal protective equipment (PPE) during and after fire suppression in order to prevent exposure to carcinogenic toxins. When PPE is not worn or properly decontaminated, firefighters are exposed to harmful toxins that could cause various health related issues. This has led to an increased need for educating firefighters on the importance of properly decontaminating PPE post-fire suppression. A local fire and rescue service have had five to six cancer related deaths over the past 12 years related to possible toxin exposure. Firefighters have expressed that they try not to take short cuts but sometimes it happens because mouth gear can make breathing difficult. Each firefighter is then forced to make judgment calls about removing PPE. Currently, there are no formal guidelines in place for properly cleaning gear at the selected site. While firefighters may sometimes use on-scene decontamination wipes to clean gear post fire suppression, there are no mandates.

Author Details

Olympia Oliver DNP, RN; Kalah Regis DNP, RN

Sigma Membership

Gamma Eta

Lead Author Affiliation

Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama, USA

Type

DNP Capstone Project

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Quality Improvement

Research Approach

N/A

Keywords:

PPE, Firefighters, Cancer

Advisor

Coleman, Jennifer

Degree

DNP

Degree Grantor

Samford University

Degree Year

2020

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

None: Degree-based Submission

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

Date of Issue

2020-07-17

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