I Didn't Like Your Airbag Article

[rmoore]

Received this email from an individual who did not identify if he has an affiliation with the fire service.......

Dear sir,
After many years of reading your articles and even recieving technequies from a seminar you taught for my past department I feel your article is way off base. Under no circumstances should you tell departments how they should test their equipment, that is why there are trained repair people. This is very unfortunate and dangerous that your article is informing inexperienced people to perform duties on this level, hopefully in the future you will take greater regard for your articles like you have in the past.

Here's my reply, just for your information.....


I'm glad you wrote me regarding the airbag life expectancy article. I respect your opinion and appreciate you taking the time to let me know how you feel.

Of the 55,000+ subscribers to Firehouse Magazine, you are the only one who commented negatively on the information. Over 100 others wrote and actually reported success in finding out that their airbags were beyond their 10 year life. Even airbag vendors and dealers were complimentary of the research that went into the article and the final results.

It's ironic that by me describing what is involved in conducting hydro tests on airbags in-house, the leaders of the fire departments that own airbags essentially realized that they need their bags tested but don't want to test them themselves. That is why there is an increased demand from airbag owners to get their bags tested by vendors or the manufacturers. My plan worked!

Bottom line is because of this information, the fire service has a renewed awareness that rescue airbags don't last forever no matter how careful you are in storage, maintenance, and use. Older bags are being taken out of service in increasing numbers and our safety at emergency scenes will benefit from that trend.

[lutan1]

Good reply Ron I think these sort of articles (as you pointed out) highlight the importance of testing. Once departments are aware of the issues, they often will step back from doing their own testing due to the litigation issues...

[NB87JW]

Ron,

Way to go keeping it in a positive light. Part of why we all respect you here. I looked for the article link in the FH archives and could not find it. Can ya post post it again here it was good and useful for me as a selling point at the time when we needed new bags. (Some were 20yrs old in service)

Thanks,

Jordan