WARNER, Okla. -- Warner firefighters are getting more fit, thanks to some surplus exercise equipment, YouTube videos, an old tire and a little ingenuity.
Over the past three months, the Warner Volunteer Fire Department has turned a space in its garage into a workout area. It includes treadmills, free weights, three weight machines, an old truck tire, sledge hammer and a long fire hose.
Yes, those last three items are exercise tools, too, firefighter Larame Bryson said. The upper-body exercise comes by slamming the tire with the sledge hammer and by making waves with the fire hose. Bryson said he saw this done on YouTube videos for firefighter exercises.
Bryson said he and Assistant Fire Chief Tobey Hadley started working out in Bryson's storage room.
"He had some extra stuff, extra machines and he didn't have enough room for them," Bryson said.
So they brought the equipment to the fire station, and the workout area grew from there.
"I bought a leg press machine from a Tulsa fire station at 36th Street North and Peoria (Avenue)," Bryson said. "I bought it off Craigslist (a classified ad website). Then, a guy outside Okay donated a cable machine. He was moving to Colorado, and he said he wanted it to go to a good cause, so we bought it and brought it back to our place."
Firefighters say they already can see the difference in the three months they've had the equipment.
"I've lost weight, probably eight pounds," Colten Purdom said.
Hadley said he was able to do more activities without getting winded.
Fitness is important for firefighters, Hadley said.
"Of all the dangers you deal with, if you have all your bunker gear on, that's 80 to 85 pounds of extra weight doing house fires or doing rescues," he said. "You've got to be able to perform your duties so you can save people in trouble. We're in swift water rescue now, rope rescue."
Fitness also helps the firefighters save themselves.
"There are a lot of heart attacks in this line of work," Hadley said.
A study by the United States Fire Administration showed that heart attacks and strokes caused 60 percent of the on-duty deaths of firefighters in 2010, more than those killed by flames, fumes or auto accidents. The agency reported similar statistics for 2009.
Hadley said the firefighters and their families work out together almost every night.
"A lot of men are beginning to take responsibility for themselves," he said.
Sometimes the firefighters work out in their bunker gear -- heavy coats, boots, leggings, even the Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus mask.
Warner has 20 firefighters, six junior firefighters and a chaplain.
Hadley said the department was looking for even more equipment, including an incline/decline bench, hex bar, elliptical and dumbbells weighing 15, 25, 35 and 40 pounds.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
