By Dave Altimari and Steven Goode
The Hartford Courant
HARTFORD, Conn. — City firefighter Kevin Bell became entangled in furniture fighting an October blaze in which he was killed, a report into Bell’s death has concluded.
Among the 22 conclusions in the report is that there was a failure to search the room in which Bell was trapped and other firefighters did not hear a lieutenant’s “mayday” distress call. The Hartford Fire Department released its board of inquiry report into the death of Bell, the first city firefighter to die in the line of duty in 40 years.
Bell, a six-year veteran assigned to Engine 16, died Oct. 7 while fighting a fire at 598 Blue Hills Ave. The fire department set up the board to review the incident and the department’s response to the fire.
It is issuing its report although the State Police Fire and Explosion Investigative Unit is still investigating the cause and origin of the fire as well as how Bell died. State police spokesman Kelly Grant said Friday that investigation is pending and detectives are awaiting test results that she would not identify.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has still not completed its final report on Bell’s death. A spokeswomen said Friday that a draft of the final report is nearly done and that the completed report is expected to be done by the end of October.
NIOSH did complete a preliminary report of the breathing apparatus that Bell was wearing and concluded that one of the alarms that should have warned Bell that his air tank was running out of air was not working properly when he died.
Bell, 48, was discovered missing after all the firefighters were ordered out of the building for a head count and was unaccounted for in the house for more than eight minutes, records show.
When it was discovered that Bell was missing, a team from Engine 5 was sent back into the burning house and found him in less than 30 seconds. Bell was found in a room on the second floor to the right of the staircase.
The medical examiner’s office ruled Bell’s death an accident caused by lack of “breathing gas.” The death certificate states that Bell’s self-contained breathing apparatus ran out of air while he was fighting the fire. It also lists cardiac hypertrophy as a contributing factor in his death.
Bell had been in the house for a total of less than 21 minutes, according to records. A cylinder is rated for 30 minutes of air, but there are a variety of factors that go into how long a firefighter’s air bottle lasts, including level of exertion or how much air is taken in with each breath.
Bell was responsible for carrying a hose up to the second floor and putting water on the fire.
A second firefighter Jason Martinez was seriously injured when he jumped from a second-floor window in front of the building. He sustained burns on 10 percent of his body and was taken to Bridgeport Hospital’s burn unit. He was released Oct. 30 and has not returned to work.
NIOSH also tested Martinez’s breathing apparatus and found that it had not been tested in the past five years, as required by federal law. Bell’s air cylinder had been pressure-tested in April 2013. They also concluded that the second breathing apparatus did not meet NIOSH’s pressure tests because it “did not maintain positive pressure” throughout the 30-minute testing period.
The two units were returned to the fire department but cannot go back into service until they are “repaired, tested, cleaned, and any damaged components replaced and inspected by a qualified service technician.”
In April Conn-OSHA issued citations and fines to the fire department over equipment-related issues, including a failure to ensure that all firefighters had been fit-tested for their self-contained breathing apparatus in the past year and a failure to ensure that all self-contained breathing apparatus air cylinders were tested every five years, as required by federal law.
The Conn-OSHA investigation also found that the department did not issue, or require the use of, protective fire/heat resistant hoods by firefighters responding to the blaze, that all firefighters had not received required medical evaluations prior to annual fitness testing, and that the department failed to ensure that firefighters wore helmets or wore equipment properly.
OSHA investigators also said that several firefighters were not properly wearing ear flaps or chin straps at the fire in which Bell died.
Initially, the agency levied a $1,000 fine per violation, the maximum allowed. The agency later reduced the department’s fine from $5,000 to $4,000 after meeting with city officials.
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(c)2015 The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.)
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