Fire department drill teams: a good idea?

Four firefighters from the Elmont Fire Department were injured when they fell off a moving truck on Aug. 30, while training for drill team competition — a taxpayer-funded department exercise that includes acrobatic maneuvers with ladders and hoses, running, bucket-lifting and motorized racing at speeds of up to 70 mph.

One 26-year-old firefighter, who was critically injured, has been hospitalized since the accident. The firefighter, whose family requested that his name not be released, was in an induced coma for nearly a month after the accident and was not considered non-critical until mid-September.

Since the accident, which occurred in North Woodmere Park, local residents have raised questions about the safety of drill-team competition, as well as taxpayers’ responsibility to pay for drill practice, competition — and, following mishaps, the resulting medical bills.

According to Robert Leonard, a spokesperson for the Elmont Fire District, under the New York Volunteer Firefighters’ Benefit Law, firefighters participating in any drill-related event are entitled to medical benefits — similar to an employee’s coverage by the state’s workers’ compensation law if he or she is injured on the job. The Elmont Fire District pays for firefighters’ medical insurance, as do other state fire districts, he explained, which covers medical treatment and hospitalization in the event of an injury.

Asked whether the firefighter’s three-months-plus hospital stay would affect the district’s insurance costs, Leonard said it would not. He explained that under the benefit law, a fire district’s medical insurance rate is based only on a district’s size and number of buildings, and not duration of medical treatment or frequency of injuries.

“It’s not like your automobile insurance, when you have a certain number of accidents,” Leonard said, adding that New York state fire districts do not incur additional medical insurance costs for having drill teams.