Firefighter Netcast - Safe Firefighter of the Month Program With PA Fire Commissioner Ed Mann

Join John and Rhett as we discuss the Safe Firefighter of the Month Program With PA Fire Commissioner Ed Mann and Hale's Bruce Lear. In 2009, 93 on-duty firefighter fatalities were reported to U.S. Fire Administration. Hoping to reduce that number, Pennsylvania Fire Commissioner Edward Mann posed a safety challenge in September 2009 to fire industry manufacturers nationwide. Hale has answered Commissioner Mann’s call with the development of SafeBuy™, a complete suppression agent delivery system designed from the ground up to support firefighter safety. Hale launched SafeBuy at FDIC 2010. “Hale has always stressed operational performance excellence in our products, which makes them fundamentally safe and reliable,” said Bruce Lear, Hale’s vice president of sales and marketing. “When we heard that Commissioner Mann saw an additional opportunity for manufacturers across the board to make safety a top priority, we realized that offering new premium safety features completely standard on a pump module would help firefighters avoid as many human errors as possible, providing the best protection for their lives.” Commissioner Mann said that his call to manufacturers stemmed from a larger nationwide program from the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation aimed at increasing safety awareness among firefighters. The campaign, known as “Courage to Be Safe,” introduced 16 safety initiatives for firefighters to follow in 2005. Since then, Commissioner Mann has overseen almost 150 “Courage to be Safe” sessions in Pennsylvania, with more than 9,800 attendees. Similar activities surrounding the program are taking place in other states. Since initiating “Courage to Be Safe” education sessions in his home state, Commissioner Mann reports that the number of line of duty deaths in Pennsylvania has decreased from 18 to less than 10 per year. He hopes that by producing safer equipment, manufacturers can help to further reduce that number across the country.