PALO PINTO COUNTY, Texas -- In the year since the death of Utah-based seasonal wildland fire fighter Caleb Hamm, family members have hoped for some significant policy changes to improve work safety for fire fighters during extreme weather conditions.
They are still hoping.
In the year since his death, Hamm's family -- parents Lynnette and David Hamm and brother Seth, of Boise, Idaho, and his aunt Sheryl McLain of Oklahoma City -- have urged for policy changes in firefighting so others won't lose their lives in extreme working conditions.
Caleb Hamm died July 7, 2011, while working with a fire crew on the 337 Fire northwest of Mineral Wells.
"Our hope is that some good will come from Caleb's sacrifice, and that the Bureau of Land Management, and other firefighting agencies, will change their policies in order to adopt the recommendations contained in the NIOSH/CDC report," Lynette Hamm stated in mid May, when NIOSH published its report on her son's death.
"We believe doing so will better protect the brave men and women who put their lives and safety on the line to protect others," she added in her statement. "Perhaps such policy changes will spare another family the heartbreak we are going through."
On Thursday, McLain wrote in an email to the Index, "As far as we know, policies have not been changed."
Saturday marked one year from when Hamm succumbed to heatstroke while working on the 337 Fire in the Devils Hollow area. The 23-year-old Idaho native came to Mineral Wells with the Bureau of Land Management's Bonneville Interagency Hotshot Crew. His crew deployed from their Utah base in late June 2011 to fight wildland fires in Georgia and Texas.
After fighting fires in Georgia for four days, the Bonneville IHC came to Texas and began work on the 1,181-acre 337 Fire on July 4, according to a report issued in May by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
In the afternoon of July 7, 2011, while his crew was cleaning up a fire line in 105-degree heat, Hamm complained of a headache, stumbled and, shortly after, collapsed in a rocky remote area between the Brazos River and State Highway 337. The report cites the young firefighter later died at Palo Pinto General Hospital from hyperthermia, a heat related illness, with a lethal core temperature of 108 degrees.
Sadly, the report indicates that Hamm showed signs of heatrelated illness, or HRI, shortly before his crew leader left him alone for a few minutes. At 3:45 p.m. Hamm reportedly stumbled on the rocks and told the leader he was hot. At that point the lead crew member left Hamm for "a few minutes while he assisted another squad," according to the NIOSH report.
When the crew leader returned, at 3:50 p.m., he found Hamm unresponsive in some rocks along the trail. It took about an hour to get Hamm from the site where he collapsed to Palo Pinto General Hospital by ambulance. At PPGH an attending physician pronounced Hamm dead at 5:03 p.m.
Before lunch, crew members "were working faster and with fewer breaks/pauses than normal" the report cites because of "a friendly competition" to reach a tie-in location before another IHC.
"In addition, some crew members reported feeling that if they took a break, crew leaders would see this as a sign that they were not up to IHC standards and reputation," the NIOSH report added. "Some crew members believed that taking 'extra' rest breaks/pauses might jeopardize future IHC employment/assignments."
Lone Camp Volunteer Firefighter Martin Buzbee described the location where Hamm collapsed as a steep trail through juniper trees and along rocks and a large outcropping of boulders. In November, he and other members of local fire departments took Hamm's family to the remote site, where they installed a barbed-wire cross. In May, the fire fighters added a stone cross at the base of a tree.
In their May report, NIOSH investigators advised agencies like the BLM to "consider cases of HRI, particularly severe cases such as heatstroke or rhabdomyolysis that result in death or hospitalization, as a sign that the current heat stress program is inadequate."
The report concluded that Hamm's hyperthermia was precipitated by moderate to heavy physical exertion in severe weather conditions, which led to exertional heatstroke.
"Fatal exertional heatstroke is extremely rare among wildland fire fighters. This was the first reported case in the agency's 65-year history and only the second reported federal wildland fire fighter to die from heatstroke according to wildland fire service records," cites NIOSH. "Agency records, however, show that less severe cases of HRIs and dehydration are more common; 255 cases occurred over the past 12 years."
The NIOSH report on Hamm's death called cases of HRI sentinel health events, which are "preventable diseases, disabilities or deaths whose occurrence serves as a warning signal that preventive or therapeutic care may be inadequate."
Organizations like the U.S. Army/Air Force and the American College of Sports Medicine have developed guidelines for determining when environmental conditions are too hot to continue training, sporting or work activities. The report stated, "The environmental conditions during this incident exceeded these guidelines."
To reduce heat stress, heat strain and prevent future cases of HRI and exertional heatstroke among wildland fire fighters NIOSH suggests strengthening the agency's current heat stress program. Ways it suggests doing this are through instruction; developing re-acclimatization schedules for wildland fire fighters not working for more than four days; and measuring environmental heat conditions using a wet bulb globe thermometer.
Copyright 2012 - Mineral Wells Index, Texas
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
