Physiological Status Monitoring in Training

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Firefighter Cadet Steven Whitfield was a member of Houston Fire Department (HFD) cadet class 2015G. On the morning of March 31, 2016, Cadet Whitfield’s class was participating in a training evolution in the “Survival House” located on the campus of the Val Jahnke Training Facility (VJTF). Cadets, encapsulated in full structural PPE while wearing SCBA, maneuvered themselves through the structure in a non-immediately dangerous to life and health (IDLH) environment, under the supervision of training academy instructors.

At approximately 11:07 a.m., Whitfield, nearing the end of the course, stopped moving, which activated his personal alert safety system (PASS) device. Within seconds, instructors removed Whitfield from the course and started providing advanced life support accompanied with active cooling. He was then transported to the hospital and pronounced dead just before 1 p.m.

Seconds before collapsing, Whitfield spoke with instructors and was able to confirm his orientation to the environment and his surroundings. After having his cognitive ability evaluated, Whitfield remained on the course to complete the evolution. Whitfield was 10 feet from the exit when he collapsed.

What went wrong?

Men and women who serve in this industry understand the inherent risk associated with saving lives and protecting property. It is part of the job. Training, on the other hand, should not carry the same level of risk. Instructors carefully script training evolutions designed to maximize a cadet’s potential for success while minimizing the cadet’s exposure to risk. The bottom line is very simple: Losing a life during a training evolution is unacceptable.

The days following the loss of Whitfield at the training academy were incredibly difficult for everyone. Investigation into the line-of-duty death (LODD) began immediately. Cadets from class 2015G were questioned about the incident along with the instructors who were working in the Survival House that morning. Although I was not personally involved with the training evolutions, I found myself plagued by two simple questions: Why did this happen? Was it preventable?

The why was answered within the autopsy report. The cause of death was hyperthermia and dehydration. The importance of hydration and a proper diet is introduced to the cadets prior to stepping foot on campus as a firefighter trainee during the conditional job offer. Once on campus, cadet instructors reinforce the importance of nutrition and hydration throughout the training program. Any problems with hydration were not due to a lack of effort on the part of academy personnel. As such, the only question left to ponder was if this incident was preventable.

Monitoring the body

The fixation on prevention started to shift early in the process. Prevention is really an extension of predictability. If we can accurately predict that something will occur, then we should be able to put mechanisms in place to prevent it from happening. Unfortunately, the ability to predict hyperthermia in a firefighter in a full PPE ensemble seemed difficult. A temperature can be obtained pre- and post-event, but not during the evolution. We did not have technology that was capable of providing a temperature reading of a firefighter who was wearing a full set of bunker gear.