NFPA Journal®, January/February 2011
By Fred Durso, Jr.

It’s a weekday afternoon in July, and a small group of parents and children is watching cartoons at a research facility in Towson, Maryland. On a large screen at the front of the room, an orange, orb-shaped character named Orbie enters his kitchen and begins frying eggs. He touches the pan’s hot handle and screams, his red hand fluttering in the air. He contemplates applying either a stick of butter or cool water to his burn before choosing the water. The cartoon then shows Orbie, having made the right choice, happily playing video games with his friend.

(more…)

Share |

Are you looking to shed pounds, tone up, build muscle or become more active? Here are some tips from Men’s Health on how to start and stay on your fitness course course.

A Bigger Challenge for Better Results

1. If you want to mimic road running on a treadmill, raise the incline to 1 percent before starting your run. Researchers found that this is the degree of treadmill elevation that most closely approximates running outdoors on the road.

2. You’ll get better and faster results if you concentrate on one goal at a time. That’s because your muscles need extra calories to grow, but your gut needs fewer calories to shrink. So if you try to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, you won’t do either effectively. If you’re sedentary, the best strategy is to lose fat first, then add muscle.

Click here to read the entire article.

Share |

Paul Markel, Firearms Contributor
Officer.com

“So what’s the big deal? They changed the grip or something?” The question was posed by a cop friend and the subject was the new GLOCK 23 Generation 4 model. Recently I had the opportunity to closely examine the new GLOCK Model 23 in the current configuration and now feel better qualified to tackle that question.

Veteran police officers today are intimately familiar with the GLOCK series of pistols. Many of them can remember the big deal it was when GLOCK added the accessory rail and finger grooves to the frame. The differences between the original GLOCK 17 and Generation 2 versions were slight and primarily aimed at staying in the good graces of the United States BATFE.

(more…)

Share |

By Vicki Smith, LION TotalCare®

“Sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite” is no longer just a phrase uttered to children as a bedtime tradition. After near eradication in the USA, the bed bug has made an amazing comeback. In 2010, every major metropolis reported infestations! The bed bug has returned as a nuisance because the effective but toxic pesticide DDT is no longer used and they have become resistant to currently available pesticides. Also, increased domestic and international travel, and the importation of goods means bed bugs and their eggs have plenty of opportunity to journey from place to place.

Although the bed bug of lore is associated with unkempt beds and dirty homes, the fact is that bed bugs are little hitchhikers that hitch rides in handbags, clothes, luggage, planes and even ambulances. They hide in dark, protected places like folds of fabric, upholstery, wood, paper and even in the cracks of walls. However they are nocturnal parasites that live on blood and their preferred meal is human blood. So they can potentially be found at almost any public place – schools, stores, homes, hotels, churches and the firehouse.  And your bed is their dining place.

Adult bed bugs are brown to reddish brown in color. They have a flattened oval appearance and a beaklike piercing – sucking mouth. Typically they are 3/16 to 1/5 inches long.

Since they are nocturnal, they feed mostly at night when the host is asleep. They inject their sharp beak into the host and will feed from 10 – 15 minutes. Their bite is painless, so it is possible to receive hundreds of bites without waking up! However each feeding site will display a small, hard, white welt and the welts are generally clustered. They can become irritated and inflamed, and itch for several hours or several days depending on your sensitivity.

Firefighters and paramedics can provide bed bugs a convenient mode of travel simply because you enter the public places where they reside. The unwary firefighter can bring the pests back to the firehouse.

Click here to download LION TotalCare’s bed bug presention. Share it with your colleagues, family and friends.

(more…)

Share |

From Medic 22

Here’s the post about my favorite EMS iPhone apps. These are the apps that I use to make my life easier. And yeah, I didn’t receive any compensation for this post.

First, The Paramedic Protocol Provider. I work in several different county systems. All have very different protocols. With the PPP, I can have them ALL at my fingertips. This is WELL worth the $7.99.

The Informed ALS field guide. A must have. And the new version rocks.

EMS Tracker is a great way to track scene times, vitals and procedures. Valuable. And, IT’S FREE!

When I work a code, I hand my iPhone with Full Code Pro to a firefighter and just have him push the buttons to mark what we’re doing. It makes charting the code so much easier.

Weight Calc? Pounds to Kg. Yeah. Find one you like. Easy and free.

My most used app is Epocrates. It’s the PDR, in your iPhone. Man, I love this app. Also, free.

Medscape is from WebMD. Some interesting stuff in here. Worth the sign up. The app is free.

For the rest of the list, visit the full article here.

Share |

LION Paul Conway Helmets™ provide high-performance protection using state-of-the-art fiberglass technology. It’s stiff enough to provide maximum strength, yet flexible for impact.

The video below is a testimony of a Norwood, OH firefighter on his first fire run in his new LION Paul Conway Helmets™ American Classic helmet. Find out how this helmet held up when an axe fell off of a roof, landing directly on the helmet.

Share |

Lightweight wood frame structure fires are among the most dangerous types of incidents for firefighters

Share |

Chief Whitman-Putnam is the first female chief in New York state

GLOVERSVILLE, N.Y. — This is not the first time Beth Whitman-Putnam has been in the fire chief’s chair.

As a Gloversville High School senior nearly three decades ago, she occupied the seat while job shadowing Chief Charles Weaver. And the pictures, including one in which she is flanked by the late chief and her father, Danny Whitman, now a retired city firefighter, adorn her office.

“The desk and paneling are still the same,” said the soft-spoken Whitman-Putnam, who is the first female career firefighter in the state to lead a department.

Her journey to the top of this 33-member paid fire department in Fulton County had its challenges.

(more…)

Share |

Terrence P. Dwyer, Esq.
for PoliceOne.com

While policy issues are not one of the more interesting topics cops want to sit through, experienced administrators know the importance of sound policy and implementation. Good policy and practice provides subsequent legal protection for the individual officer. However, the stark reality of use of force policy in 2010 America is that there are still many police departments operating from agency manuals drafted in the 1970s and 80s with inadequate deadly force guidance for officers.

(more…)

Share |