child safety seat installation @ fire stations

[cambridgeaux]

Has anyone heard of firefighters getting training on proper child seat installations, and then after training installing seats while at the fire station?
For those that have used it;
Is there any liability to the installer?
Is it out of the mission statement of your dept?

[Bootsatcfd]

We do install child safety seats at our department as a community service if a certified technician is on duty. Child safety seat checkers must have completed the National Highway Traffic Administration Technician level training ( a week long class) and must maintain their certification. As for as liability is concerned parents must sign a release before we check their seats. Remember in our jobs everything is a liability just make sure you are properly trained and document all you do. As for as why we do it our job again is to protect life and what better way than to make sure our children are riding in a child safety seats that is correctly installed. Most seats we check are not installed correctly and some are even recalled. We partner with our local Safe Kids organization and hold check points out in community. Also use the time parents and children are at station to promote fire safety and your department.

[cambridgeaux]

Thanks Boots,
I've also heard about local Elks, Lions, etc. clubs donating seats for famalies who can't afford them. That may be an option for your dept if you don't do it already.

[lutan1]

Our service went down the path a little while go of inspecting the integrity of the installation of these seats.

I personally have a huge issue with it from a liability point of view...

I'm not offering any insight into your question- it just concerns me. I'd hate to be fronting up to the Coroners court explaining why the installation failed in a head on collission or similar.

Child safety seat checkers must have completed the National Highway Traffic Administration Technician level training ( a week long class) and must maintain their certification.

I do however beleive this is an awesome step in the right direction- we don''t have anything like it though...

[delanw]

Matt,

Just want to echo what Bootsatcfd passed along. We do alot of the same stuff here at Montgomery County (MD) Fire & Rescue. All of our techs are NHTSA certified and we have release forms. We also partner with SafeKids and actually use one of our old firestations as the appointment only fitting station.

We do still have people show up to the stations unannounced and, as with Bootsatcfd, they can only do it if a certified tech is on duty. (The citizen is also told that personnel are subject to emergency response and they may have to stand by a bit if we get called out.) If no one is, we have a matrix sheet that guides the person on how to get our customer immediate help from other resources if it is an urgent situation.

On liability I would just offer this: What if someone pulled into a station, with a NHTSA Tech there, with a 2 Y/O unrestrained and a car seat in a box. We turn them down and 5 mins later we are dispatched to a PIC and find the same 2 Y/O serverly injured and mom fine. I would think that a real good attorney (and there are plenty here in the Wash., DC area) would initiate a huge lawsuit over us "failing to act" when we could have.

Very tricky issue but I always say: "Let's do the right thing."

Best Regards,

Bill Delaney
Program Manager - Community Safety Education
Montgomery County Fire & Rescue
101 Monroe St., 12th Floor
Rockville, MD 20850
(O) 240.777.2448
(P) 301.629.2306
(C) 301.648.1262

http://www.mcfrs.org