- Overloaded multiple sockets, improvised DIY, children bent over the balcony at 8 pm… With confinement, firefighters fear domestic accidents more than ever.
- “Usually, if we go to a sprained ankle or knee, we know that we are going to put an ice pack, put a splint and take the victim to the emergency room. There, we must investigate the victim, put all our protective gear. When you come back, the stress is there, you wonder if you've caught something and you don't sleep peacefully at night, ”says a firefighter.
"The activity is decreasing, especially on road accidents, but the interventions have nothing to do with usual and the firefighters are constantly worried", says Eric Brocardi, spokesperson for the National Federation of Sappers - firefighters from France.
Overloaded multiple sockets, improvised DIY, children bent over the balcony at 8 pm…, the rescuers fear more than ever the domestic accidents linked to confinement at a time when the invisible enemy of the coronavirus complicates each intervention and creates “permanent stress”.
“Usually, if we go to a sprained ankle or knee, we know that we are going to put an ice pack, put a splint and take the victim to the emergency room. There, we must investigate the victim, put all our protection necessary, "details this captain from Nice. "When you come back, the stress is there, you wonder if you've caught something and you don't sleep well at night," he says.
"Falling from the roof, injuries with chainsaws"
If they remain insignificant according to the Departmental Fire and Rescue Services, some domestic accidents have occurred related to the obligation to stay at home. Three days after the start of confinement, the Vendée firefighters reported a black series essentially linked to DIY or gardening, good weather forces. "Falls from the roof or ladder, injuries caused by chainsaws, mowers, hedge trimmers ..."
"The care of the victims of these accidents contributes to the increase in the activity of the center 15 and to an increase in the number of people admitted to the emergency room while the containment measures aim to limit regroupings", warned SDIS 85 on Facebook.
Other departments, such as the Drôme, have prohibited scorching and burning of green waste to limit the risk of fire starting. But, the number one problem, according to Eric Brocardi, is "the electrical overload linked to the use of telephones or portable devices".
"Defenestrations can also happen"
In Nice, the firefighters intervened last week for a start of fire caused by an overloaded electrical power strip, placed on a terrace. "We had people who moved to second homes where they had lit the chimney without cleaning the flue," increasing the risk of fire, also reports Eric Brocardi.
"When the television and the radio are switched on for ten hours a day, it is no longer the same daily use of the house", he explains, emphasizing the preventive measures: "no telephone in the wet rooms , avoid overloading everything at the same time and avoid multiple sockets which are not up to European standards, with the real logo ”.
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"Defenestrations can also happen because every evening, we put ourselves at the window at 8 pm, everyone leans over to look at the neighbors: we must not leave the children alone," he said. Another point, "it is not because the DIY stores are closed that we must use equipment that is not necessarily suitable: we run the risk of hurting ourselves, creating a short-circuit or electrocuting ourselves".
A decontamination cycle after the interventions
If the public follows these instructions, firefighters can "focus on helping people at risk of infection", which comes under intense pressure with the health crisis. "I am going to intervene [...], I do not see the enemy who is a virus, I redouble my vigilance, and from a point of view of psychological fear, I enter an environment that I do not know", tells this fireman. You must then put "blouse, glasses, charlotte".
"When you see flames and smoke, you put on a mask, a helmet, a breathing apparatus, you are armored, you see the enemy and you know how to control it, how to put it out and kill it." Today, we do not know what it is "in the face of the virus, he continues. The intervention stops only when all the elements carried on you have completed the decontamination cycle and the ambulance has been completely cleaned. “So, insists Eric Brocardi, an intervention that basically takes an hour, today makes three, between the time we get dressed and the time when we made the truck operational again. "
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