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Sleep Deprivation In EMS



Sleep deprivation a problem...not is you ask responders in the Fire and EMS. If you ask researchers it is. I have been reading a lot of articles lately on the effects of sleep deprivation on emergency responders and the results aren't good. Now, as a badge of honor emergency responders (police, fire , and EMS) live to respond and will do it every opportunity they can. Fire and EMS traditionally responder work a variety of shifts many of which are variations of a 24 hour rotation.  During these shifts, those responders are required to complete training, station duties, truck inventories and check-offs, as well as respond to the number of routine and emergency calls for service that are phoned in during a given rotation.  In addition, when you do have an opportunity to sleep, that sleep is interrupted by additional calls or simply that you don't achieve a deep sleep to allow you to hear your call.

Now sleep deprivation has an effect on multiple things, two of which I am going to talk about today.  1, sleep deprivation has an effect on response operations, mainly from the perspective of having to drive and from calls in less that full mental capacity and 2, after the end of an exhausting shift, these emergency responders also have to drive to their houses.

In 2000 a study was released by a British Journal that stated driving after being up for 16-17 hours is similar to driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.05.  Now, while that level is well below the legal limit for driving while intoxicated, we must also consider that unlike the traditional motorist, our personnel are driving multiple ton fire apparatus and ambulances at high rates of speed through open interstates and rural backroads during the sunny days, dark moonless nights, and rain or ice storms.  With our responders already racing through dangerous roadways, do we want them to have their reaction times delayed.

Now, the next morning can be just as challenging as the day of response.  At that point, emergency responders have been going for the past 24 hours.  It can be at any point during the day that they have the potential to sleep and even more that they may not.  Some agencies still have a policy that off-going rotations must be out of the bunk rooms by shift change in preparation for leaving the station.  I have personally been on the side of this where I spend the majority of the evening on a run or multiple runs and had to leave my station right at shift change.  That was a very interesting drive home.

Some Agencies have started to alter their shifts to ensure that responders have the ability to work shorter shifts to reduce the fatigue that afflicts them, and others have altered their policies to allow responders that are going off-shift to sleep beyond their shift end, and/or offering to drive them home.  Make sure if you are a responder you consider your fatigue seriously.  There are more deficits that can come from it that will come soon.

Take care and Stay Safe
Combomedic

twitter.com/dsblev

CNN Health - Sleep Deprivation as bad as alcohol impairment, study says" CNN HEALTH
JEMS - "Student Measures Effect of Sleep Deprivation on Shift Work" JEMS

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