The Hawaii IAFF Local doesn't want firefighters riding on ambulances until the probe of the deadly fire is concluded and safety measures are in place.
The official request to the Honolulu Fire Department came less than a day after an ambulance explosion killed a patient and left a paramedic in critical condition.
“We don’t want our members in the back of an ambulance...and we hope that they will put great priority on doing a preliminary investigation to find out exactly how this fire started or where it started,” HFFA President Bobby Lee told KHON.
Lee said he sent a written request to the Honolulu Fire Department to stop all firefighters from riding on ambulances until not only is the cause of the fire determined but safety factors are instituted to prevent it from happening again.
“It happened in the back of the ambulance,” Lee said of Wednesday’s Kailua fire, “though the only accelerant that I know of that’s in the back of the ambulance is oxygen. So it seems to be some kind of failure of equipment or protocols, procedures, or lack of protocol procedures.”
Lee told reporters he is hoping for a fast response to his request.
“This is a really sad incident, you know, but if it happened one time, it can happen again. As rare as it may be, it can happen again. So the fact that it did happen once, requires the employer to take safety measures,” he said.
