Phoenix, Charlotte FDs Retrofit SCBAs After Malfunctions
Several firefighters were caught in potentially dangerous situations when the demand lever inside their second stage regulators would fall out of it's bracket, leaving it stuck in the closed position so that the firefighters could not breathe the air in their tanks, said Kevin Roche, assistant to the Phoenix fire chief. The problem is not caused by a screw popping out, as previously reported.
In at least one case in Phoenix, the malfunction occurred right as a firefighter was about to enter a burning structure at a fire scene. Two other regulators failed at fires and two failed in training drills.
"We were fortunate in a sense that some of those happened during training activities, not 4-500 feet back in a zero-visibility warehouse," said Capt. Mark Angle, director of public information. "That's a role of the dice, so we were very fortunate."
Angle said the first thing they did was put together a labor/management team to investigate the problem, and they got together with Scott Health and Safety officials to survey other municipalities across the country that use the same equipment, including San Diego and New York.
Phoenix appeared to be alone in this problem until last week when they discovered that the Charlotte Fire Department in North Carolina had experienced the same malfunction.
"I think that we were having the exact same problem," said Robert Tutterow, Health and Safety officer at the Charlotte FD. He said their problems occurred between last June and September, with two of the incidents occurring in fire conditions. A recruit experienced the failure during live fire training, and a firefighter encountered it while he was doing ventilation at a fire. Tutterow said the firefighter had to put the SCBA in "bypass mode" and come out of the fire.
Tutterow said firefighters using Scott SCBAs should be reminded to open the bypass if they ever run into this problem, so that they can breathe the rest of the air inside their tanks and get to safety. Tutterow said this is normal training for most firefighters, but is concerned that somebody might forget or panic.
SCOTT Fire Service Marketing Manager John Skaryak said Wednesday that two other fire departments, in addition to Phoenix and Charlotte, have reported situations in which the demand lever inside their second stage regulators would fall out of it's bracket, leaving it stuck in the closed position. Skaryak declined to name the other departments but said that both have made the necessary repairs and have put their regulators back in service. He said SCOTT was notified about these departments and arranged repairs with them at around the same time they heard from Phoenix and Charlotte.
Skaryak said SCOTT officials have several theories as to why these situations have a occurred at a few particular fire departments, but have not yet reached a conclusion.
"With close to 20,000 U.S. fire departments using approximately 400,000 easy flow regulators on a daily basis at some of the busiest fire departments in the world, it has been hard for us to pinpoint why this is happening in a few isolated instances," he said. "We are trying to determine if they have something in common which could identify cause and effect."
Skaryak said SCOTT does plan to notify users about the issue, and said officials are investigating whether a re-design could eliminate this potential problem in the future. "We've always had open communications concerning safety issues, and this will be no different," he said.
Roche said Phoenix simply retrofitted their regulators with new screws that have a larger head on them to catch the demand lever so it can't fall out of the bracket. He said Scott provided the parts for free and sent over several technicians to help do the work, at no cost to the fire department. However, it did cost the department $9,000 in overtime to their own employees, to get the retrofit done as quickly as possible. The work was done over a weekend in December, and in the two months since, they have had no malfunctions.
The Charlotte Fire Department will perform the same retrofit with Scott technicians in 10 days, Tutterow said. He said they have also contacted NIOSH about the problem, in case they feel it warrants an alert or recall.
It is unclear why Phoenix and Charlotte have experienced this malfunction while other departments have not.
Angle and Roche said Scott tried to determine whether Phoenix was misusing their equipment or mishandling it during maintenance, but they say this is not the case, and that there is no pattern to the malfunctions - some of the regulators were new and some were old.
After the problems, the Phoenix FD stopped assigning one or two regulators to each individual and now keeps one with each SCBA. They have 1500 additional regulators they did not retrofit because under the new arrangement, they are not being used.
Charlotte officials have also been unable to pinpoint the reason why they and Phoenix appear to be the only fire departments who have reported this problem. Tutterow said the only thing he can think of that both departments do differently from most other departments, is that both of them were assigning each firefighter their own regulator. He said most fire departments only assign the masks to individuals. However, he said this should make no difference because they received the same type of maintenance, and normally, people take better care of equipment in their possession than they do of shared property.
Both departments said they are happy with the solution and remain confident in Scott.
Angle said he is thankful to Scott for helping them find a cheap and easy solution to the problem. "You don't want to run out of air," he said. "You don't want that voice in the back of your head going, is this going to stop as soon as I go deeper and deeper into the building?"
Angle recommends that other departments with Scott SCBAs be aware of the potential malfunction, and to contact Scott if they experience it to find out how to retrofit the regulators.
He said he doesn't think there is any concern left among Phoenix firefighters about the reliability of their equipment. "What makes a happy ending, is a simple solution to a simple problem," he said. "Everyone was aware and had a hand in the solution."