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Do your firefighters need training in dealing with accidents on the farm?In the 1990s, 1256 deaths and 14,900 hospitalizations resulted from farm-related injuries. Courses are now available to help firefighters, police and others deal with them betterby TREENA HEIN'Tis the season for giving and receiving and John Parish director of the Ontario Municipal Health and Safety Association (OMHSA) has old farm machinery on his wish list.Firefighters are often the first on the scene at a farm accident and the OMHSA runs training courses around the province, teaching them how to extricate injured farmers from machinery. "We basically destroy several pieces of farm machinery every course," says Parish. These firefighter-training sessions are being held province-wide in an effort to improve emergency response to farm accidents. More pre-hospital training is necessary, says Dr. Rob Brisson, an emergency room physician and director of the Canadian Agricultural Injury Surveillance program at Queen's University in Kingston. Brisson says farm injuries "are significant and often result in long-term disability." Between 1990 and 2000, there were 1,256 deaths and more than 14,900 hospitalizations from farm-related injuries across Canada. OMHSA has been teaching its three-day course across Ontario since 1993, and now runs eight of them annually with 22-30 people per course. Parish says the first and second days involve theory and group activities on farm machinery and silo fires. "The third day is all hands on, with adult and child dummies in different locations." Capt. David Sparling and his colleagues at the Blyth Fire Department in Huron County participated in the program this past summer. "Regular extrication [of accident victims] just doesn't work with farm machinery. That's the biggest thing people get out of this," he notes. Both rounds of participants have given it high ratings, and it was also the first course to fill up at the 2004 Ontario Firefighter Associations' Convention. Parish notes that he and some of the other course developers have been through the FARMEDICTM program based in New York State. "It's good," says Parish. "They're aware of us and we're aware of them." A one day "Farm Casualty Management" training session took place in September at Wridair dairy farm outside Windsor. "It's a good idea, because nobody's got much farm knowledge these days," says Roger Wright, co-owner of Wridair with his wife Sheryl and mother Shirley. "Our community is not set up for a silo accident," he says, and many emergency workers "aren't even aware of how to shut a machine off." About 100 paramedics, fire and police received information on farm equipment, power take-off accidents, extrication, fires, ATV safety, and pesticides. Police presented a segment on "scene preservation" and a panel of experts held a discussion. Wright himself gave a few pointers for paramedics who may need to administer to a patient lying unconscious inside a stall with an animal. He says he did his best to show them "how to remove the animal first and use common sense. If it's not a bull or horse stud, it shouldn't be a problem." Participants also took part in a full emergency scenario with a narrator explaining what should ideally happen. Dan Metcalfe (ELS co-ordinator) and Cathie Hedges program manager are the organizers behind the training session, which involves organizations and sponsors from Red Cross to Farm Credit Canada. Metcalfe believes this training is needed because "the majority of paramedics are city folk and perhaps don't have as good knowledge as they should. We want emergency personnel to be able to make the scene safe and deal with equipment." Hedges, who came up with the idea for the course, adds that while "paramedics are trained to deal with any kind of trauma, accidents with farm equipment are very different from those with automobiles." Nationally, the Canadian Agricultural Safety Program (CASP) funds an average of 38 farm safety initiatives each year, but has not yet funded one involving emergency response and farming. If you and your farming group would like to suggest they do so, Marcel Hacault executive director of CASP is certainly open to the possibility. "We'll be asking for proposals on the website," he says. Dr. Brisson believes all emergency workers would benefit from farm-focused training. "Since entanglement in augers is the most common non-fatal injury, it would be useful to have firefighters know augers really well," he says. He also stresses that both paramedics and firefighters should have a high awareness of "maintaining spinal protection for any type of wrap/drive-shaft injury."
What's the extent of farm-related emergency training in your area? You may want to ask around, and perhaps also donate old equipment to the Municipal Health and Safety Board's program. John Parish can be reached at 613-659-3962. BF
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