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Tucson Fire Foundation’s 2013 Poker Run…Get Involved!
The GreaterTucson Fire Foundation(GTFF) is proud to invite you to get involved with our 2nd Annual Poker Run, which will be held on Saturday, May 18, 2013. This motorcycle ride will travel across the north and east side of Tucson, with stops at various community fire stations that will help raise funds to benefit firefighter health and wellness. We encourage you to get involved!
How? There are several different ways!
You could participate in the Poker Run as a rider. Registration packets are available for download below. Simply print it out, fill out the required forms, and send in the information as instructed on the form. Online registration will also be available soon.
A variety of sponsorship opportunities are also available! Sponsorship of this event supports community firefighters and provides you and your business inclusion in this unique, community-based event. To learn more, download the sponsorship package below or email inquiries to pokerrun@topcu.org.
Prefer to just volunteer your time to help the event run smoothly? Email volunteer@topcu.org with your contact information!
The most valuable equipment found in the fire station is the firefighter. Despite the advances in safety and personal protection, approximately 100 U.S. firefighters die on the fire ground each year, many from cardiac-related issues. Half of those deaths, however, are preventable with adequate wellness and fitness programs.
In the past year alone, Greater Tucson Fire Foundation efforts have effectively helped save at least five firefighters’ lives within local jurisdictions – all of whom showed symptoms of life threatening, undiagnosed heart disease.
The Foundation’s 2013 Firefighter Health and Wellness Initiatives include:
Firefighter Cardiac Disease Assessment Protocol
Reducing firefighter injuries through Peer Fitness Trainer Certification
Campaigns to combat potentially deadly, antibiotic-resistant infectious bacteria, such as MRSA
Identifying effective coping mechanisms for sleep deprivation in public-safety jobs
Providing important mental health and wellness services for firefighters and their families, including those who work for smaller agencies that might not be able to afford access to these services.
We invite you to help the Foundation “take care of those who take care of us.”
If you have questions about this event or our program offerings, please email pokerrun@topcu.org. We appreciate your continued support of our programs!
TO REGISTER:
(2013RegistrationForm.pdf, PDF, 163KB)
SPONSORSHIP INFORMATION:
Greater Tucson Fire Foundation Focuses On Health Initiatives
In its 2013 Strategic Plan Initiatives, the Greater Tucson Fire Foundation has placed an emphasis on the health of firefighters. Some of these initiatives include supporting cardiovascular and sleep-deprivation studies, offering mental, emotional and psychological health resources, and generating funding for Peer Fitness Trainers (PFT) to prevent on-the-job injuries.
Recently, strides were made on the Cardiovascular Initiative, as reported by the Arizona Daily Wildcat:
Dr. Wayne Peate, an associate professor at the College of Public Health, proposed that the Greater Tucson Fire Foundation look at funding a study where at-risk firefighters receive an ultrasound to look for.
“The study that Dr. Peate did through the UA College of Public Health demonstrated the efficacy of the ultrasound to the point where now we want to do it with the firefighters,” said Mike McKendrick, chairman of the Greater Tucson Fire Foundation. “The added hope is that this will become the national standard.”
The study, which ended in 2011, found that the ultrasound machine is more effective than the heart CT scan in detecting blockages in the arteries, and that with the ultrasound there is no radiation, Peate said.
How has the Greater Tucson Firefighting Community benefitted from this study? UA News goes on to report:
As a result of the study, the Greater Tucson Fire Foundation decided to provide funding for an ultrasound machine in the firefighter’s clinic in Tucson. The machine will be placed
in the clinic by December, in hopes that it will benefit firefighters.
“What the foundation looks at is if we have just one save, it’s worthwhile,” McKendrick said. “The save could be really saving a firefighter’s life, or even letting a firefighter know that he or she has potential for that cardiac disease so they can go to their primary care physician and be treated.”
The study showed there was a cheaper, more accurate and less dangerous way of detecting abnormalities than with other types of technology, Peate said. Early intervention can help firefighters to stay healthy in their careers, he added.
“If we can get it ahead of time, let the firefighter know there’s a problem, then we can treat it,” McKendrick said. “There’s really not a lot more traumatic than a firefighter having a heart attack at work. You have to save the person there to do the saving, and that’s very traumatic.”
Brittny Mejia I Arizona Daily Wildcat
For the full article, go to: http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu/article/2012/11/ultrasound-
firefighters-clinic-ua-study-111912. For more information on the Greater Tucson Fire Foundation and its initiatives: www.tucsonfirefoundation.com.
October 2012 Fire Foundation Newsletter
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Coming Soon….News that is good for the heart!
Firefighters are known for having big hearts … but research has also shown they have astoundingly high rate of heart attacks and cardiac-related death. According to a 2007 Harvard Medical School study, cardiovascular events account for 45 percent of deaths among firefighters on duty. In contrast, heart attacks are considered responsible for only 15 percent of deaths that occur in conventional jobs.
That’s backed up by a year-long study conducted in 2008 at Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Atlanta. Researchers of the project, sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, examined hundreds of firefighters in Gwinnett County, Georgia. Members of that study group, they found, were 300 times more likely to suffer a heart attack at work than employees in any other profession.
Tucson has an opportunity do work in that area as well. Dr. Wayne Peate, department physician for 21 fire agencies in Southern Arizona, and an associate professor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, would like to test the use of ultrasound imaging to detect abnormalities that put firefighters at risk of cardiac disease.
The Foundation is interested in helping with funding for the important study. More on that later …