What's an injury on the AFG application?

[medstudent13]

Our company has had:

1 bruised finger in 2008 after in was caught in the stretcher when lifting.

1 pulled muscle from lifting an obese patient.

Are these injuries for the AFG application? They were reported but no treatment was ever sought.

Is it good or bad to have injuries listed on the AFG application? Helpful or hurtful?

Thanks

[medstudent13]

This true?

STUDY YOUR PLAYBOOK AND PLAY BY THE RULES

The first thing everybody needs to understand is that all grant programs have” funding priorities” assigned to them .We need to remember that it is “their” money ,and if you want “their” money, you must address “their” priorities. If you don’t, you have just failed the basic test of getting your grant into the competitive range.

In the AFGP Guidelines document the “primary reason” for this program is stated as being “to enhance firefighter safety”. What can we infer from this statement? They are seeking to make the individual firefighter safe. Those of you who applied should now ask yourself what your response was to the question that was asked in the grant application, “How many firefighter related injuries has your department had during the last three years”? Almost without fail, every rejected application I read had answered that question with “0”. Now, if the primary purposes of the grant is to enhance firefighter safety and you answered that you had no injuries in three years, what do you suppose a grant reviewer, or in this case the “computer reviewer” would conclude? The computer will assume that you run a very safe operation and that you do not need any help with safety related matters. Guess what? In the words of the noted southern comedian, John Engvall, “Here’s your sign!”

You incorrectly assumed that they meant a “workman’s comp related injury” or one that “required formal medical intervention” didn’t you? Wrong! All they asked you for was how many “injuries”. They did not say what severity, or ask you how many went to the ER, they simply asked how many reported injuries did your department have. True, none of us wants to be labeled as having an “unsafe” department but, let’s be real here folks. Your workman’s comp insurer and the State reporting requirements specifically tell you what type of injuries need to be reported to them. USFA is not asking you that. You are trying to read too much into what is being asked.

How many of you have been fighting a structure fire and the smoke column shifted with the wind and you sucked in some smoke? You probably had to go get into the clean air, or sit on the rescue truck and suck some O2 and then you went about your business. If your grant request was for SCBA equipment does it not make sense that you should have some “smoke inhalation” injuries in order to justify the need for new SCBA and individually fitted face masks? The key to this is you need to have “documented” these injuries. That can be as simple as making a notation on a run record that FF Smith suffered a small cut on his right hand which was treated at the scene and no formal medical attention was needed.

My inquiries of these Chief’s also showed that many of you did not understand how critical these answers are that the application asks you to answer in the front of the grant. People, there were 24000 applications received for this program. Do you think that a human being reads every one of them first? No, they don’t! When you are dealing with this many grant applications you have to “screen” them somehow. A computer tabulates and assigns points to the answers you provide in those questions. If, in the end, your score does not reach a certain level you never make it into the competitive range. That means a human being never reads your request! All of the work you did in the narrative section now becomes moot.

It is vitally important that the answers to those “activity specific” questions are not put in “willy-nilly”. The numbers need to be researched thoroughly. They should be accurate and they need to be complete. You have to do some research here folks; just throwing in a number is a sure-fire way to get your grant scored lower than it needs to be. Do the work, do the math!

[jmurphy139]

Maybe Kurt has some better insight to this if he is still breathing at this point in the game.

I know the question came up at his seminar this winter and someone had found that an reportable injury according to AFG must have required outside medical attention.

[celsokid]

its bill engvall

[SLY4420]

There is no requirement for hospitalization to be needed to consider an injury. We have had a few guys injure themselves working around the station throughout the year and it is documented as an injury on our applications.

The two injuries you cite are reasonable and most likely should be listed.

No one out there is perfect.

[DFDCar1]

My recollection is that there is a dropdown that you can access when you get to that question. As I recall, they are only looking for injuries that require treatment beyond first-aid. Can't access the dropdown, because I'M DONE FOR THIS AFG ROUND!!!!

[SLY4420]

No dropdown.

Injury means any physical damage to the body caused by violence or accident during the conduct of firefighting activities or training that requires treatment at a medical facility and/ loss or curtailment of the ability to provide normal active firefighting or EMS duties. Exposures would only count as an "injury" if the exposure eventually resulted in loss or curtailment of duties.

If you were temporarily disabled as a result of a pulled muscle from lifting a patient, this would qualify.

[DFDCar1]

OK - There it is.... in the FAQ's....

"Injury means loss or curtailment of the ability to provide normal active firefighting or EMS duties. Exposures would only count as an "injury" if the exposure eventually resulted in loss or curtailment of duties."

So it would seem that if you can demonstrate "loss or curtailment of duties", (no defined length of time!), then it would count. This came up in the discussion at Kurt's class in Bushnell's Basin, where it was suggested that every paper-cut be documented as an "injury" to get your numbers up.

[mtndew21]

Remember also that injuries need to be documented either in personnel files or the run report.This will cover any audit process.
No matter how little a injury it may be it should be reported no matter what for the AFG or station use. That "paper cut" might get infected ect. As for helpful yes it is as safety is the #1 priority of the grant.

[jam24u]

If my junior firefighter gets a bloody finger, I'm having one of my EMT's put the bandaid on it and record it. Possible Blood borne pathogens are a legitimate issue and some state procedures concerning having an injury like this and the handling of victims/patients with such an injury. No one, including the responders wants any FF's around leaking drops of blood. To me that is legitmate, to others it may be a fine line whether it is a legitmate injury, but am willing to argue it with them while having them shake hands with bleeding responders.

[Limeforever]

Documentation is vitally important in this catagory. Using the reporting software we have, I can pull up any injury that has been reported to the OIC, and is documented on his report. We have advised all of our officers to document these, no matter how small, not specifically for the grants, but for future reference if one of our guys has a problem later, he has the documentation to back up the original first report of injury. This goes a long way with our workmans comp provider, as we have documenattion to support claims. It does not have to be an injury that requires treatment at the ER, but should be documented.

[ktb9780]

Ohh I see someone is proofreading, very nice catch guy.

[ktb9780]

Well that statement above was from my manual which was four years old and at the time , it was correct. As pointed out though, it has since been changed by AFG to reflect that you had to "stop your activites as a firefighter and seek medical attention". My new revised manual ( at the printer now) has that corrected, as well as attributing the quote to Bill Engvall not John. Probably more important there though, is the relationship of the question to the priorities of the program; that is still a very valid point. Thanks