Cardiac Awareness Toolkit

In February 2020, IAFC President Gary Ludwig launches his initiative, If You Don't Feel Well, Don't Make it Your Farewell, with the goal of eliminating life-ending cardiac events.

The toolkit below is aimed at helping this mission by providing information and resources to assist members and fire departments.

Sample Policies & Strategy Development Tools

SOP: Administrative Response to On-duty Medical Event(s) template (pdf)
Example policy departments can use to outline their actions and processes when responding to acute on-duty medical events. This example also outlines the department's response to on-duty injuries and illness.
Cardiac Events Administrative Checklist
Outlines areas of concern for fire chiefs and their departments pertaining to the handling of on-duty or duty-related cardiac events. Each of the listed items should be considered, researched, answered, and memorialized in formal documentation (e.g. policy, procedure, guideline, bulletin, etc.) prior to encountering an issue.

Legislation

Presumptive Health Initiative
A comprehensive presumptive health initiative database, which enables one to search their state of origin for related presumptive healthcare laws and their associated legislation.

Training Tools

Act in Time to Heart Attack Signs
Informational PDF that could be posted around the firehouse to inform members of the common warning signs and symptoms as well as the appropriate reaction. Made for the layperson; however, the same information applies to firefighters.
Acute Coronary Syndrome Overview
General signs and symptoms to ensure department members know what to look for in the event of an acute cardiovascular event.
Treatment of a Heart Attack
Overview of common heart attack types, treatments and medications.
Assessing Cardiovascular Risk
Downloadable resource (pdf) available to fire chiefs and their department members for assessing cardiovascular risk.
Heart-Health Screenings
To help minimize or prevent the potential for cardiovascular disease and the associated risks, certain risk factors and lifestyle habits should be screened by your primary care provider. These factors include diet quality, physical activity, smoking, body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, total cholesterol or blood glucose.

Media Tools

NIOSH Firefighter Fatality Map
An interactive map provided by NIOSH, which provides you the ability to search for cardiac-related (or any other types) LODDs and associated NIOSH reports. This database is useful for generating awareness to the documented cases of sudden cardiac deaths in the fire service.
If You Don't Feel Well, Don't Make It Your Farewell Survey Report (pdf)
As part of this life-saving effort, we're conducting an open-ended survey to collect data from fire and EMS personnel who've experienced cardiac incidents. This report documents what we've heard so far.

Research Papers, Articles & Blogs

FireRescue1: IAFC campaign focuses on watching for warning signs of cardiac events
Overview of the If You Don’t Feel Well, Don’t Make It Your Farewell initiative.
Heart disease common among firefighters who die of cardiac arrest
Firefighters face many dangers, but the greatest risk is from a cardiac event in individuals who have underlying cardiovascular disease.
OSHA ponders new standard for emergency responder
Article related to the newly formed NFPA standard on emergency responder occupational health.

NIOSH firefighter fatality investigation summaries

American Heart Association

Triggering of Acute Cardiovascular Disease and Potential Preventive Strategies
Article discusses advances in acute cardiovascular disease onset understanding and a 5-point strategy to mitigate the effects of triggering (2006).
Fire Simulation and Cardiovascular Health in Firefighters
Study outlines the physiological reaction of the body to fire suppression activities and physical exertion (2017).