2007, Piran, Slovenia

Environmental Ergonomics XII
Igor B. Mekjavic, Stelios N. Kounalakis & Nigel A.S. Taylor (Eds.), © BIOMED, Ljubljana 2007
THERMAL RESPONSE DURING SEARCH AND RESCUE: A
COMPARISON BETWEEN FIREFIGHTING CLOTHING AND
GAS TIGHT SUIT
Victoria Richmond, Mark Rayson, David Wilkinson, James Carter
Optimal Performance Ltd, Bristol,UK
Contact person: vic@optimalperformance.co.uk
INTRODUCTION
The UK Fire and Rescue Service often exposes their personnel to working conditions
that can lead to heat strain, such as high ambient temperatures and radiant heat loads,
physically demanding tasks and the wearing of personal protective equipment (PPE)
that limits heat loss. Core temperatures (Tc) in excess of 39 ° C have routinely been
observed in typical fire training (Graveling et al., 2001) and in some cases as high as
41 ° C (Smith et al., 1997). High Tc such as these have been found to be one of the
dominant factors responsible for limiting work capacity during a range of emergency
service scenarios (Rayson et al., 2004).
During firefighting duties, normal firefighting PPE (NPPE) is worn which includes a
fire retardant tunic and trousers, boots, gloves, helmet and breathing apparatus. For
firefighters attending a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN)
incident, a Gas-Tight Suit (GTS) is worn, which is impermeable and fully
encapsulating. The wearing of such protective, impermeable clothing, together with
working in a hot environment, creates a condition of uncompensable heat stress where
the cooling required to maintain thermal equilibrium exceeds the evaporative capacity
of the environment (McLellan, 1998).
All firefighting activities are dependent to a greater or lesser extent upon the
physiological capabilities of firefighters. Thus, the physiological limitations of
firefighters must be considered when planning for conventional and terrorist incidents
within the built and natural environment. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to
determine the additional thermal load, if any, associated with wearing the GTS over
normal PPE during a sub-surface railway search and rescue scenario.
METHOD
Twenty firefighters (19 males, 1 female (mean ± SD), age 32 ± 5 yr; height 180 ± 4
cm; body mass 84 ± 9 kg) from London Fire Brigade carried out a search and rescue
scenario on a sub-surface railway with the aim of evacuating an unconscious casualty
(75 kg manikin) from a train 500 m from the station platform. There were four
experimental conditions, which included two different ensembles (NPPE or GTS)
with either the travelator (moving walkway allowing access to the platform) on or off.
The conditions are coded as C1 (NPPE, travelator on), C2 (GTS, travelator off), C3
(NPPE, travelator off) and C4 (GTS, travelator on). Subjects worked in teams of two,
both wearing the same PPE. Each trial consisted of the following sequence; the pair
gaining access to the platform on foot, walking 500 m pushing a rescue rail stretcher
along the track to the train, locating the manikin and lifting it from the train and onto
the rescue rail stretcher, pushing the rescue rail stretcher 500 m back to the platform
and carrying the manikin on a stretcher to street level. In the travelator on condition,
subjects ‘rode’ on the travelator for access to and from the platform. In the travelator
off condition, subjects had to climb 6 flights of stairs for access to the platform / street
level.
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