By Robert Mills
Lowell Sun
LOWELL, Mass. — Lowell firefighter Kelly Page had a busy day on Sept. 14, running from downed power lines to false alarms, medical emergencies and then a basement fire on West Sixth Street.
He avoided injury in every instance, but in the evening was not feeling well.
Two years ago, firefighter Bob Carroll started feeling lousy while fighting a fire.
Twenty-one years ago, firefighter Barry Gannon felt about the same.
Bob Carroll survived the heart attack that would soon stop his heart.
On May 29, 2005, several colleagues used a defibrillator to restart Carroll’s heart in the Moody Street fire station, where they saw him collapse.
Both Page and Gannon were alone when they collapsed.
Both men died.
In a line of work so respected by a public who pictures brave men facing vicious flames and collapsing floors, heart attacks remain a quieter killer that claims most lives.
Heart attacks are by far the leading killer of the nation’s firefighters since 1990, causing from 34 to 52 percent of firefighter deaths every year, according to the U.S. Fire Administration.
So far this year, at least 29 of the 98 active firefighters who died had heart attacks, according to USFA. The cause of death for many remains undetermined.
An official ruling on Page’s cause of death remains pending.
Carroll survived his heart attack, but it stopped his career. He never returned to work. According to city records, since 1972, 42 Lowell firefighters have taken a disability retirement due to heart conditions.
Page and Gannon are among at least nine Lowell firefighters to have died from heart attacks. The last city firefighter to die in the line of duty from a cause other than a heart attack was in 1943, when two men died after their fire engine crashed.
Firefighters’ bodies are under constant stress, rushing to a fire scene or emergency call, blasts of adrenaline coursing through their veins. Even a false alarm may damage the body.
“Your adrenaline gets going, your heart gets pumping and you’re ready for the worst when you show up,” said Chelmsford Fire Chief Jack Parow. “You do that seven, eight, 10 times a day over a 32-year career and it adds up.”
Lowell Fire Chief Edward Pitta adds: “Even in a false alarm, you don’t know that you’re responding to a false alarm.”
Then add in toxins like carbon monoxide ingested at fire scenes, plus the heat trapped inside a firefighter’s 40 to 50 pounds of protective gear.
Page was in outstanding shape. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, firefighters are 90 percent less likely to suffer a heart attack than the general population, because firefighters as a group tend to be in better shape.
The Journal study adds that firefighters are twice as likely to die from a heart attack while fighting a blaze.
“There’s something about firefighting that’s worse than other professions,” said Dr. Richard Birkhead, chief of cardiology at Lowell General Hospital.
Birkhead said heart attacks occur in firefighters who likely already have an underlying heart condition, such as plaque in their arteries. The stress of adrenaline and fighting a fire can bring such a problem out in a horrible way.
All firefighters go through a rigorous physical screening at the start of their career as part of the state fire academy, according to State Fire Marshall Stephen Coan. He said academy training also aims to encourage life-long fitness for firefighters.
Just because a firefighter passes a physical at the start of a career does not mean heart disease will not develop in the years to come though.
That is why a March 22 editorial in the Journal, as well as Birkhead, advocate that firefighters take physical exams and stress tests regularly.
“I think I could make a case that a firefighter should have a stress test every so often to pick up anyone who may have heart disease,” he said.
Laws have been passed that aim to keep firefighters in good shape and promote ongoing physical screening. Concord Fire Chief Kenneth R. Willette said those laws are applied differently in each community.
Lowell does not require firefighters to undergo annual physicals. Pitta said everyone is encouraged to stay in shape, and every firehouse has its own exercise equipment for use around the clock.
Many men get their own physicals, but it is not required or paid for by the city.
Willette became president of the Fire Chiefs Association of Massachusetts in May. He plans to make wellness and ongoing physical screening for firefighters an issue.
“I’ve attended four funerals since taking the presidency, and there was a fifth I couldn’t attend,” Willette said. “That’s an awful lot in such a short span of time.”
Two died while fighting a fire. The other three died from heart attacks or apparent heart attacks.
“All three who died (of apparent heart attacks) had worked a shift and had responded to several emergency calls... Then subsequent to that they died,” Willette said. “It wasn’t at the emergency scene. It wasn’t at that moment, it was after that moment.”
“That’s so troubling.”
Birkhead said common signs of a heart attack are chest pains and a sensation in the left arm. Yet symptoms also can be far more muted.
“Just nausea, feeling lousy, or sweaty and weak,” he said.
In other words, warning signs that may easily be dismissed as something else.
Willette hopes to convene a committee of chiefs, union members, volunteers, Coan and state government to discuss what more can be done, and how to increase participation in physicals and wellness programs. Coan and Parow support that.
“In the past, and probably still, we spend more on maintaining apparatus than we do our firefighters,"Parow said. “and we need to look at that closely.”
Willette remembers Page’s funeral, and the others.
“It’s a very sobering experience for all of us when we lose firefighters, and when you meet the chief you can see it in their face -- that they’re affected by it and carry it with them,” Willette said. “Hopefully, we’ll get to a point where we don’t have to see that again. Whether it’s through screening or improved wellness, maybe we can eliminate this from happening.”
“I don’t know if that’s possible, but it’s damn well worth trying.”
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