Prehospital emergency care : official journal of the National Association of EMS Physicians and the National Association of State EMS Directors
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
A comparison of cooling techniques in firefighters after a live burn evolution.
We compared the use of two active cooling devices with passive cooling in a moderate-temperature (≈ 22 °C) environment on heart rate (HR) and core temperature (T(c)) recovery when applied to firefighters following 20 minutes of fire suppression. ⋯ During 30 minutes of recovery following a 20-minute bout of fire suppression in a training academy setting, there is a slightly higher cooling rate for FI and no apparent benefit to CV when compared with P cooling in a moderate temperature environment.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Physiological recovery from firefighting activities in rehabilitation and beyond.
The primary objective of this study was to document the timeline of physiologic recovery from firefighting activities in order to inform emergency medical services (EMS) of vital sign values that might be expected during incident rehabilitation and in developing rehabilitation protocols to make decisions about when to return personnel to the fireground. Secondarily, we compared two different incident rehabilitation strategies to determine effectiveness in reducing physiologic strain following firefighting. ⋯ The timeline for recovery from firefighting activities is significantly longer than the typical 10-20-minute rehabilitation period that often is provided on the fireground. Modifications from the current rehabilitation protocol do not appear to improve the recovery timeline when rehabilitation is conducted in a cool room. While firefighters often are concerned about elevated blood pressures, this study suggests that firefighters and EMS personnel should also be cognizant of the potential dangers of hypotension.