Wearing of PPE, or lack of it !!

[Good times]

Its with some concern lately that the amount of pictures I have seen from various places like the promotions unit site and newspapers show CFS members in either incorrect PPE, half PPE or no PPE at all, If I was incident controller I don't know if I would be comfortable with this situation considering how litigous our society is, and apart from the fact its WRONG !!

I read with horror an article in the Kangaroo Island paper of a bus fire well involved, the pictures that went along with the story show the CFS members in various amounts of PPE on, with the guy on the end of the hose with what appears to be casual clothes, no PPE to be seen. This would concern me greatly as a bus on fire is potentially a very dangerous scenario.

So it might be time for those of us from CFS to check up what we are wearing and looking out from others, the gear is given to us for a reason and the rules are made for a reason so how about following them!!

[strikeathird]

Personally... I think if people aren't wearing ALL and CORRECT PPE they should stay at the station..

Not only is it the dangers involved in Fire Fighting, Search and Rescue, Extrication duties  etc etc... But what about the Public Image that CFS has to uphold!

[rescue5271]

It should be noted that ALL MEMBERS must wear PPE at all call outs and when traveling on the rear of appliances,it was nice to see at the last few rural fires we have been at all our rural brigades had there PPE. It must have been that Talk that the last R/C gave them at start of fire season.

[CFS_Firey]

I'm suprised that they feel safe fighting fires with no ppe... I get warm enough from radiant heat even with full ppe... Same with Safety Tabards.... I don't feel safe walking around on roads (especially the SE freeway) without having a nice shiny reflective vest on....

[JamesGar]

Personally speakling I've seen so many situation and incidents where CFS personel aren't wearing appropriate PPE that I've given up worrying about it. Most of the time's I seen DGO's and GO's (just varifying that not current ones) rock up to incidents in command vehicles with no PPE. My view is the OHSW one that if you're supplied with the equipment, and get injured whilst not wearing appropriate PPE then you're at fault not the CFS, and you're infact liable under OHSW legislation...

[kat]

As an OHS&W Coordinator and Claims Administrator (lucky me) in my other life I would agree that, as employees, under the OH&S Act we have a legal obligiation to wear the appropriate PPE.

But as one Claims Agent (insurer) told me once - we cover all incidents from filtered Employers to Idiot Employees. So if for some (inexcusable) reason you do have the misfortune to injure yourself without the correct PPE being utilised you will still be covered under WorkCover.