FIT TO SAVE LIVES: FITNESS STANDARDS IMPORTANT FOR POLICE AND FIREFIGHTERS

Police officer Ike Hammonds chooses his milk and cookies carefully. He said his health depends on it.

"If I do eat cookies, I'll try to drink skim milk instead of whole milk," said Hammonds, a corporal with the Cape Girardeau Police Department.

A strict diet and exercise regimen is vital to Hammonds, who seldom knows what to expect on the job. His 14-year career as a Cape Girardeau firefighter before switching departments eight years ago had the same degree of unpredictability.

But for those like Hammonds, who chase down drug dealers on foot or crawl into burning buildings on their hands and knees, physical fitness means life or death for themselves and others. National statistics show more firefighters die from heart attacks than from smoke inhalation. And because of these hard facts, the fitness standards for Cape Girardeau police and firefighters periodically have become tougher.

Poor diets and a sedentary lifestyle is the nature of law enforcement, Cape Girardeau Police Chief Rick Hetzel said.

"We work in shifts, and that takes a toll on a body," Hetzel said. "Then you add up all the cups of coffee and fast food. Cops have a terrible diet."

Exercise for police used to come naturally, said Lt. Carl Kinnison, who is in charge of training for Cape Girardeau police.

"It was more traditional in the early days of law enforcement," Kinnison said. "It was such a paramilitary culture, the training was similar to the military."

Nowadays, very few police academies incorporate exercise into their training, he said.

After examining various fitness testing standards, Cape Girardeau police started their own annual testing in 1999.

Officers are required to climb a six-foot fence, push a car 40 feet, drag a 125-pound dummy 60 feet, and run a half-mile in four minutes and 30 seconds.

All the tasks are job related, Hetzel said.

"If we don't have minimum physical standards, what stops a person who can't run from becoming a police officer?" he said.

Only 8 percent of the Cape Girardeau officers tested did not complete the half mile within the time limit, and everyone completed the other tests successfully.

Through an agreement with St. Francis Medical Center, the officers who failed the run are able to go through a 12-week fitness program paid for by the city. At completion, they will be retested, Hetzel said.

Demanding tests

Demanding physical testing traditionally has been part of the application process for a firefighter, said Fred Vincel, training officer for the Cape Girardeau Fire Department.

Cape Girardeau applicants must hit a stump 50 times with a six-pound sledgehammer, drag a 200 foot hose section 200 feet, raise and lower an extension ladder, carry a 60 pound box of equipment up and down two flights of stairs, and drag a 125 pound dummy 120 feet.

The acts must be completed in sequence within seven minutes.

"By the time they get to the body drag, they're pretty well exhausted," Vincel said.

Since most applicants know what to expect, only about 10 percent fail, he said.

Once in the fire department, anyone working an assigned shift is required to engage in some form of exercise, and typically firefighters go in groups to run and lift weights at the Osage Center. They take fire trucks so they can answer calls immediately instead of returning to the station.

The 24-hour shifts also promote eating together, which can be good or bad, Capt. Mark Starnes said. He recalls when Fire Station 2 was located across the street from a doughnut shop on Independence Street.

"Everyone started off his day with a couple doughnuts," he said.

Starnes and firefighter Ed Serandos cook together in the small kitchen at Fire Station 3 during at least two of the four shifts they work each week. Neither claims to be a nutrition fanatic, but they do watch what they eat.

"I had a piece of that pecan pie over there yesterday," said Serandos, pointing to a kitchen counter with several pies. "That was the first pie I've had this holiday season."

Starnes, who shuns pizza and tea, agreed with Serandos that firefighters have better opportunities to eat well than police.

"If you're working the night patrol and constantly driving, where else are you going to go to get something to eat besides a fast food place?" Serandos said.

An additional health measure implemented in 1991 requires firefighters to have complete physicals once every three years, Vincel said. Because the physicals cost the city $5,000 annually, the department is only able to test each individual once in three years, he said.

Several firefighters found out through physicals about diabetes, heart problems and, in at least one case, cancer that had not been diagnosed, said Tom Hinkebein, shift commander.

"There have been many conditions detected that would have been fatal over the long term," he said.

Job stress extremes

Hinkebein was a police officer for four and a half years before he went to the fire department in 1976. He said both jobs are similar because they can involve quick, physical exertion at any moment, but firefighting produces more injuries.

"Most serious fire calls come at night, when you're asleep," he said. "So you have to get up and get going to a fire that has been burning for a lot longer than if it had been in the daytime."

Former firefighter Hammonds agreed. Firefighters jump from a greater level of relaxation than a police officer when an emergency occurs, he said.

"You'll be sitting at the fire station in an easy chair and the bell goes off and you go, go, go," Hammonds said. "As an officer out there cruising, you're never that relaxed."

The problem of not exercising is probably greatest for volunteer firefighters, who make up over 70 percent of all firefighters nationally, said Jim Bollinger, chief of the Marble Hill Fire Department. Volunteer departments generally don't have money to pay for exercise equipment or gym memberships, so conditioning is left up to the individual, he said.

When police and firefighters maintain their physical conditioning, it not only benefits the individual, Hetzel said, it helps the community. Workers are less likely to get sick, and if they are injured, recovery generally is quicker.

"The public has a right to expect the best from all officers," Hetzel said.

JOB HAZARDS

Both police and firefighters generally fall victim to the conditions of their professions, according to their leading causes of death:

Police

1. Firearms - 49 percent

2. Auto accidents - 15 percent

3. Motorcycle accidents - 7 percent

4. Struck by a vehicle - 7 percent

5. Job-related illness - 4 percent

Firefighters

1. Heart attacks - 48 percent

2. Internal trauma - 23 percent

3. Asphyxiation - 10 percent

4. Crushing - 9 percent

5. Burns - 7 percent