Can you believe it? 2007? Seems like it just turned 2000! For some inexplicable reason I have some pretty positive feelings about 2007.

Unfortunately, a review of the past several years of the U.S. Fire Administration's firefighter fatality reports, perusal of the www.firefighterclosecalls.com Web site and a reading of the accounts from the new www.firefighternearmiss.com reporting system make it clear a lot of firefighter deaths and injuries could have been prevented.

So, based on the past, here in the present, I'd like to share with you my predictions for the New Year:

• Eight volunteer firefighters will die because they were not buckled into their private vehicles while responding to emergency calls. Five career firefighters will die because they didn't buckle their seatbelts while riding in an apparatus. You're right! These fatalities were easy to predict, because they happens fairly often. Sad, isn't it?
• A firefighter over the age of 60 will die from a heart attack occurring within seven hours of an incident. He's already had one bypass, but it must not have been successful because he'll die this year.
• A career firefighter under the age of 45 will die of a heart attack at the scene of an incident. An annual physical might have caught those clogged arteries or got him or her on medication for high blood pressure.
• Three EMTs will contract Hepatitis C, and another EMT in will contract HIV. Precautions could have prevented all these infections, but the EMTs were in a hurry and just got a little careless.
• A female firefighter, under the age of 34 will find a lump under her arm. Unfortunately, she's too busy and it doesn't hurt, so she'll just wait and see if it goes away. Breast cancer doesn't run in her family anyway, so it's no big deal.
• A fire chief will once again enter a burning building without his bunker coat, helmet or SCBA. He's not trying to be macho or anything, he's just trying to micro-manage an out-of-control building fire...or, perhaps he is simply tempting fate because he knows he has a pre-existing condition and wants to "go out a hero."
• After work, an EMT will once again stop at the local bar. This time it's to try to wipe from his head the images of the unit's latest call, a four-year old boy, severely beaten by his mother. Last time it was following the unsuccessful attempt to resuscitate a victim. Lately, the reasons to dull the pain with alcohol seem easy to find....

Okay, I cheated. Each one of these scenarios relates to something I read or heard in the past 18 months. Does history have to repeat itself? Will we read your death notice or hear about your accident over the course of 2007? I hope not. Seek physical and mental healthiness in 2007 and pursue it as if it were your life.

Happy New Year, my friends!

Janet Wilmoth, Editorial Director
janet@firechief.com