TORONTO — The recent death of a firefighter trainee during an ice-rescue exercise has prompted calls for an oversight of the safety training industry that isn’t regulated.
The private safety training industry has come under scrutiny after firefighter trainee Adam Brunt, 30, died last Sunday. He became trapped under the ice for about 15 minutes. He was one of 12 students taking part in the class.
Brandon Sun reported that while the industry has established best practices for firefighter training, there’s nothing to force private companies to adopt them.
“Anybody could start teaching something tomorrow, and if somebody is willing to pay them the money and take the course, there’s nothing that says that they can’t do it — it’s not necessarily safe and it’s not necessarily protected,” said Fire Chief Jeff Van Rybroeck, with the South-West Oxford Township.
Fire departments that contract out specialty training do their due diligence, but firefighter trainees looking to add training onto their resumes might not be as savvy, Chief Van Rybroeck told reporters.
“For a lot of these types of companies, they’re almost preying on these pre-fire students because they know those students are willing to pay the money to take the training, and unfortunately they don’t have the knowledge of who they should be going to for some of these things,” he said.
The training exercise was run by a Toronto-area company called Herschel Rescue Training Systems. The company’s owner, a Toronto-area firefighter, was acquitted after being charged in 2010 under the Occupational Health and Safety Act in the death of a volunteer firefighter, Gary Kendall, who died during a similar ice water rescue exercise.
A judge ruled he had not officially been designated as incident commander for the exercise. Officials would not say whether the same man was involved in both incidents, but several industry insiders confirmed that was the case, according to the report.
Brunt’s father, Al Brunt, said his son signed up for the ice rescue course “because he wanted to have it on his resume” as he sought work in a highly competitive field, according to the report.
Chief Van Rybroeck, a former training officer, said measures are needed to ensure those taking safety courses aren’t putting themselves at risk.
“No one should ever die from a training incident,” he said. “Training should be protected, it should provide safety for the students, it should provide a safe environment where they can learn and become proficient at their skills. It should never be something where they’re faced with danger and they have to fear for their life.”