By Tracy Overstreet
tracy.overstreet@theindependent.com

It's not that firefighters are overweight, but the general public is, Fire Chief Jim Rowell said.

That obesity then takes its toll on firefighters who have to lift overweight patients.

"Three hundred pounds is just another day at the office," said Troy Shubert, emergency medical services division chief.

Shubert said the department has had numerous 700-pound patients and even one who weighed 1,000 pounds.

The weight factor and its impact on firefighters' backs and shoulders are the primary reason the department has invested in the power cot a $10,000 hydraulic gurney.

"It's operated by a 24-volt Dewalt battery. It's electric over hydraulic system," Shubert said.

The Stryker brand cot is rated for 700 pounds. The department started buying the power cots two years ago, Shubert said, but it wasn't until last fall that each of the four stations in the city had one power cot.

"It's worth its weight in gold," said Jared Stockwell, a firefighter/emergency medical technician. "It's saved a lot of backs. It's definitely helped on injuries."

Reducing injuries is important because a back or shoulder injury takes a lot of recuperation time.

Paramedic Dion Friesz was out for six months when a damaged rotator cuff and torn bicep required surgery. He injured the shoulder while trying to lift a patient on a cot up some steps.

Shubert said there's a power cot that has a stair climber attached, too, but at $17,000 apiece, it's not yet cost effective for the department.

Friesz said the power cot itself is a big plus, but not just because of the hydraulic motor.

On the back end of the cot are lift handles at various levels, which make it easier for firefighters of different heights to lift the cot into the ambulance.

The power cot also has special wheels on the front that make it possible for one individual firefighter to bring the cot into a home. The department's old cots required at least two firefighters to carry the cot in manually.

The department's paramedics said cot design has changed a lot over the years. Many cots now also feature side extenders that can be pulled out to match the width of larger patients.

Other design alternates may be needed in the coming years as people simply get larger.

"If you were 6 feet 2, 10 to 12 years ago, that was a big person," Shubert said. "Now, 6'2" and 300 pounds is common."

"We're finding our (cot) straps aren't fitting over the belly section" of some patients, Friesz said.

"In the last 10 years, they've really gotten large," 30-year veteran paramedic Russ Bolling said of patients.

"I attribute it to more TV channels. People are inactive. They don't do their own lawns. They have a lawn service," Bolling said. "And there are computer games and stuff like that. Kids aren't getting out."

Bolling recalls playing sandlot baseball and pom-pom-pullaway as a kid growing up. He doesn't see groups of kids out in yards like that as much anymore.

The department gets more calls, too, on what's called a lift assist. It's usually a call to a home where an obese person has fallen and no one else in the home is big enough or strong enough to help the person up.

Bolling said he was on a lift assist recently where it took four firefighters to help a 500-pound man up off the floor and back into his chair.

Shubert said the department hopes to get at least five years' use out of each of the four power costs purchased.

The department is also focusing on a particular set of exercises to prep firefighters for the increased demand for heavy lifting.

"We do back stretches every morning," Capt. Todd Morgan said. "It does seem to keep the back injuries down."