FOR RELEASE: Thursday, April 19, 2007
Dissertation Just Beginning of Mission to Improve Firefighter Safety
Julie Goldman volunteers for the Morrow Fire Department in Washington County and based her doctoral dissertation on an examination of emergency vehicle safety awareness.
Firefighters focus on protecting lives and property, but sometimes that focus is so narrow they put themselves in danger on the way to the scene of a call. Julie Goldman, a recent University of Arkansas graduate for the third time, found a lack of awareness of emergency vehicle safety issues when she studied perceptions of fire chiefs.
Goldman felt concern at her findings. She and her husband volunteer with the Morrow Fire Department in Washington County. Her doctoral dissertation research looked at the differences in emergency vehicle safety perception and awareness between career, or paid, chiefs and volunteer chiefs.
"Firefighters get tunnel vision," Goldman explained. "They are thinking about where they are going and how they are going to get there, what they have to do when they get there and who might be in danger at the scene. They tend to take the driving and 'getting there' for granted."
The dissertation earned Goldman a doctor of education degree in work force development education last December. But she didn't stop with studying the issue; she also created a Web site for firefighters to educate themselves and their departments about safety issues. At http://uacted.uark.edu/firefighter, she provides information about her study, numerous links to safety information on the Internet, as well as government data about firefighter deaths and ways to prevent them.
Arkansas has 24 career fire departments, 870 volunteer departments and 46 combination departments, according to Goldman's dissertation. The sample she studied was made up of the chiefs of each career department and one volunteer chief from each of the state's 75 counties.
Her data revealed significant differences in perceptions among volunteer and career chiefs in the areas of wearing a seat belt, apparatus maintenance, apparatus inspection and firefighter attitude. The chiefs also differed in their awareness of standard operating procedures, speeding, training to National Fire Protection Agency standards, firefighter fatalities or lawsuits within their departments, personal accountability for an accident or an apparatus and the importance of a national initiative to improve firefighter safety.
Since launching her Web site, Goldman has spoken to firefighters at the invitation of fire chiefs and at a Washington County Rural Fire Association meeting.
"My goal is to raise awareness about firefighter fatalities," she said. "My study found that most volunteer departments don't get the information they need to reduce firefighter fatalities, and 38 percent of volunteer chiefs don't have Internet access at their departments. I wanted to be proactive in helping them locate information. Volunteers are limited in the training and meeting time they have."
She makes recommendations such as this in her dissertation: "All of the national efforts to reduce line-of-duty deaths cannot help the firefighter who never hears about them. Unfortunately, more often than not, it is the rural, volunteer firefighter that is left unaware. Alternative methods and deliveries (of materials designed to reduce line-of-duty firefighter deaths) should be considered that focus on reaching the entire fire service."
Goldman worked as program coordinator for Off Campus and National/International Credit Studies at the School of Continuing Education and Academic Outreach while she earned her master's and doctorate. Recently, she accepted a position as coordinator of the newly developed Southeastern Conference Academic Consortium located on campus.
She earned an undergraduate degree in business administration before enrolling in the College of Education and Health Professions to study vocational and work force development education. She has served the Morrow volunteer department as secretary for eight years and was certified as a first responder in 1999.
She became interested in firefighter safety after doing research in a statistics class, where she found that motor vehicle accidents were the second-leading cause of death of firefighters in the United States. After seeing pictures and reading several case studies of firefighters being killed in motor vehicle accidents, she decided to pursue the topic.
"Firefighters get desensitized to seeing motor vehicle accidents, but when those accidents involve fire apparatus and firefighter fatalities, it can get their attention," Goldman said. "They have to stop thinking it can't happen to them -- because it can and it does."
She explains to firefighters that driving more slowly and wearing a seat belt are the two most important things that they can do to improve safety responding to or returning from a call. She has seen some local departments take steps to enforce seat belt use and emphasize to the firefighters that they need to slow down and not become part of the problem.
A version of Goldman's dissertation is being submitted for publication review to the International Fire Service Journal of Leadership and Management. She described herself as a lifelong learner but credited her advisor, Jack Devore, associate professor of vocational education, with encouraging her to continue her formal education.
"I wouldn't have dreamed of working toward a doctorate, but he convinced me to continue in the doctoral program as soon as I finished my master's," she said. "He told me not to put it off. I'm glad I didn't."
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Contact:
Heidi Stambuck, director of communications
College of Education and Health Professions
(479) 575-3138, stambuck@uark.edu