Report Number: 05-0000178
Report Date: 05/27/2005

Event Description

On Tuesday, September 28, Truck (unit number deleted) responded to a working commercial structure fire in a restaurant. I was riding in the officer’s position and a firefighter was in the bucket. When we arrived on the scene, we were given instructions to enter the fire building on Side A and start pulling ceilings, working from the front of the store to the back. We went in about 10 feet and started working. The first time I put my hook through the ceiling, I heard a loud noise and suddenly had air rushing out of the high pressure hose of my air pack. I immediately grabbed the firefighter and signaled to another firefighter who was riding as officer on Wagon (unit number deleted), that we were exiting the building due to an air pack failure. We went out to the front of the building and I started taking off my helmet and mask while the firefighter turned my bottle off. After looking at the air pack, I realized that the integrated PASS alarm (manufacturer trade name deleted) and quick fill assembly had completely come off the air pack, causing the high pressure air to come through the hose straight from the bottle. I had worn my air pack on two other calls that day and had no problems, although it was never pressurized. I had also conducted a full checkout of the air pack that morning when we came in to staff the Truck. The checkout included pressurizing the system, donning the mask and breathing through the MMR (mask mounted regulator). I found no problems during my checkout. I was fortunately not injured, and was only ten feet inside the structure. This made for a rapid exit. I was able to secure the damaged air pack in the Truck, get a new one and continue our operations. The integrated PASS alarm and quick fill assembly were later found on the floor when the PASS device started alarming.

Lesson Learned

The lessons learned for this Department were: Consistently perform thorough checkouts of SCBA prior to each shift. Fully investigate incidents involving equipment failure for all possible causes. Involve the manufacturer; the root cause of the failure was traced to assembly line inadequacies.

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