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Fire department nets $80K for fitness

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By Ryan Gauthier, Staff Writer 1:22 AM Saturday, February 27, 2010

MIDDLETOWN — The Middletown Fire Department has received nearly $80,000 in funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to advance its firefighter health and wellness programs.

Deputy Fire Chief Tom Snively said the grant money will go toward purchasing exercise equipment for each fire station, providing baseline fitness evaluation and health screenings for every firefighter as well as educating everyone on proper diet and exercise. The baseline fitness evaluation and health screenings are particularly valuable, Snively said, as other departments in the area have been able to detect medical concerns before they became problems.

“It’s going to provide us with a very thorough work-up of everyone in the department,” Snively said. “I’ve heard of other places finding people who needed to have stents put in their hearts. The program basically paid for itself in terms of preventative stuff.”

The city of Middletown will be required to pay $20,000 in matching funds for the program, as Snively said the grant requires an 80-20 split. Of the total $99,450 available to the department, Snively said $35,000 will go toward equipment, $55,000 will pay for screenings and evaluations and $7,200 will be used to train members of the department to become peer fitness trainers.

A total of six trainers will receive instructions on how to implement the fitness program and will help institute it within the various fire stations over the coming year. They will be tasked with teaching their peers proper ways to use the equipment to help avoid any unnecessary injuries.

Dr. Saeb Khoury, medical director of cardiac catheterization at Atrium Medical Center, said as many as half of all deaths amongst fire fighters are caused by heart disease. The brutal combination of job-related stress, an average higher body mass index and routinely switching between day and night shifts compounds to create a dangerous situation for firefighters, Khoury said.

While not a lot can be done to change the stressful nature of the job, Khoury applauded the fire department for taking steps to at least reduce one risk factor.

“The exercise equipment should be helpful in lowering their cholesterol, fighting obesity and reducing hypertension,” Khoury said.

Khoury also advises people to “avoid the usual diet we have nowadays,” which includes far too many high-cholesterol and high-fat items. “That deep-fried diet is terrible for your cholesterol profile,” he said.

The vast majority of Middletown firefighters take care of themselves, according to Snively, but there are people within the department “all over the spectrum.”

“Notoriously, firefighters eat a lot of food,” he admitted.

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