Hazards: Needing the First Aid They Give to Others
By Eric Nagourney
Published: January 15, 2008
Paramedic, heal thyself.
A new study finds that ambulance workers stand a good chance of being hurt on the job, with 8 percent likely to miss work because of a job-related injury or illness in any given year.
Writing in the December issue of The American Journal of Industrial Medicine, researchers noted that emergency medical services workers were exposed to a variety of health risks, including pathogens and the occasional uncooperative patient. But the study found that most injuries were caused by lifting patients.
“You’ve got to move people not just from the sidewalk to the ambulance but up and down flights of stairs,” said the lead author, Jonathan R. Studnek, an E.M.S. worker who is a graduate student at Ohio State University.
The researchers based their findings on a survey of ambulance workers from 1999 to 2005. They found that the injury rate was much higher than the national average for job-related injuries, which they put at about 1 per 100 a year.
At any given time, they said, almost 1 out of 10 emergency medical workers were missing work because of injury or illness suffered on the job.
One approach to safeguard the health of ambulance workers, Mr. Studnek said, involves the use of mechanical stretchers that lift patients into the ambulance.
This article is taken from the New York Times and can be found here. The study referenced in the article above can be viewed here.