Managing Heat Stress and Hydration During Training
Heat-related injuries are more common in candidates participating in recruit training academies and multiday training courses than one may think. These injuries have led to dozens of public safety officer line-of-duty deaths and thousands of injuries and near misses. Most instructors believe having the students drink enough water is the solution, but they couldn’t be more wrong. Effective heat injury prevention includes proper screening, field medical test, hydration and caloric control measures, weather monitoring, and closely managing the students’ time in and out of their personal protective equipment. This class goes beyond the National Fire Protection Association rehab standard and provides easy to implement strategies that can greatly reduce or eliminate these injuries.