Page 8 - Occupational Health & Safety, May 2017

LETTERS
There Must Be Accountability for
Those Who Don’t Respond Appropriately
Re “Fire Alarm or Test?” March 2017, Vol. 86, No. 3, page 36
The concept explained in this article can only be described by someone on the emergency response side as cringe worthy. The idea of a culture which condones the questioning of “is it real or not” unquestionably increases their potential for a devastating and tragic loss. There is insurmountable evidence showing fire depart- ments across the country are undermanned and in many areas, be- cause of the frequency of fire alarm activations, reduced responses are allowed. The idea of not responding appropriately on both sides is cause for considerable concern.
School fire alarms were briefly mentioned in the article, and this is a great place to start. I’d like to ask you to reminisce about fire alarms while in school. When the whining alarms began and the bright flashes of the strobes began their rhythmic routine, what was your immediate response? If you can’t remember, I’ll re- mind you. You STOPPED what you were doing and evacuated. In elementary school, you likely formed a line to be guided to your evacuation point by the teacher and then accounted for. In higher grades, you probably proceeded to your evacuation point in an or- derly manner, and again, accounted for. There was no deviation of this routine, and an entire school would be evacuated within min- utes because this was the expected behavior and was enforced. This same routine that happened when you were in school still occurs each month in schools across the nation. Instead of using differ- ent signals, or “designing and conducting tests and drills so that alarms are for emergencies and the employees respond in a safe and proper manner,” we simply need to enforce expected behavior when a fire alarm sounds.
The requirements for an emergency action plan exist within 29 CFR 1910.38, which is clearly enforceable, and further enforce- able actions can be found in your local fire codes, but personally, this is not where the motivation for an expected behavior should originate from. I would prefer the companies’ overwhelming re- sponsibility for the safety of their employees to be the motivation. If a company would act as your “teacher” and enforce the expected behavior, we could develop the correct routine of following estab- lished emergency action plans EVERY TIME an alarm is activated. Those who fail to meet the established behavior should . . . well, be sent to the principal’s office. There has to be accountability because the consequences are so severe and so very real.
For fire departments, we can do better, too. What kind of edu- cation are we providing to our business partners? When this be- havior is encountered, do we conduct education to include what
local ordinance/fire code is? If it’s a repetitive behavior, is enforce- ment action taken? Back in the days of CDs, a manufacturing fa- cility existed within my first due area whose downtime was in the millions in lost production time when a fire alarm occurred, but not once did they fail to properly evacuate their factory. Why? Because safety wasn’t just a sign board when you walked in or a tagline on emails; it was their established culture. When they began to have multiple alarms due to system malfunctions, they began to put pressure on their system maintainer and eventually enacted a penalty clause for false activations. That’s the “creative” response that’s needed. If you’re experiencing continual false alarms, let’s find out why and fix it! With respect to emergency response to fire alarms, we know this behavior is more common than not. Why would we place ourselves in a situation where we are immediately understaffed to effect a rescue of multiple oc- cupants? Every response area is different. Staffing levels, paid vs. volunteers, and the list goes on. Someone could easily present a situation to why it’s appropriate for them to respond with a re- duced assignment, and I would agree. For others, though, does the saying “Just because you can, doesn’t necessarily mean you should” ring in your ears? Fire departments must perform a risk assessment in their areas to determine appropriate response needs. If departments are unable to respond with a full alarm, perhaps there is even more of a need to focus on education to enforce proper actions in the event of an emergency.
It’s not my intent to be critical of the author, and I feel the sar- casm he expresses about the situations people put themselves in, but I am surprised it was printed. In defense to the many safety coordinators, their “checks” had better be in order when I get there because if there’s not a “check” by someone, I need to know and then focus on finding that someone. I may be oversimplifying the problem, but for me the solution is simple. It is very true, when employees hear an alarm it is not a test. Their only action should be to follow their emergency action plan. Should they fail to respond appropriately, they need to be held accountable. The requirements for emergency action plans are sound and built upon tragedy. Hard lessons were learned which resulted in law and code development; there’s no need to relearn them.
Dennis A. Fagnant, Jr., CFO Division Chief, Safety & Training West Buncombe Vol Fire Department Asheville, N.C.
STEVE CRECELIUS AND VISIT DENVER
Letters Policy
Occupational Health & Safety welcomes letters to the editor about the contents of the magazine or issues important to our readership. We will publish letters if space permits; anonymous letters are not accepted. Please submit letters by e-mail to Editor Jerry Laws at jlaws@1105media.com.
COMING IN NEXT MONTH’S OH&S
Get ready for Safety 2017 (June 19-22, Denver) by reading the show preview section in our June 2017 issue. The issue will include an oil & gas safety special section and feature articles on hand protection, gas detection, employ- ee gifts & incentives, defibrillators & CPR, electrical safety, transportation safety and heat stress.
8 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2017
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