In 2021, sixty-five (65) United States Emergency Responders consisting of (30) law enforcement, (22) tow truck operators, (9) fire/ems personnel, (2) roadway service technicians and (2) safety service patrol operators were struck and killed on the roadway. Countless others have been injured. The importance of situational awareness cannot be stressed enough. If you think it cannot happen to you, look at the map of incidents provided by the Emergency Responder Safety Institute.

ResponderHelp.com has a number of resources to assist emergency responders in their operation at highway incident scenes. Several technical documents are available.

• USFA Emergency Vehicle Safe Operations Manual
• Emergency Responder Safety Institute Resource List
• Highway Safety Scenarios

ResponderHelp.com also has a number of SOGs related to roadway safety available for download.

• Roadway & Roadside Scene Safety
• Reflective Striping & Roadway Vests
• Traffic Control Safety Checklist

The concept of protecting the work area using modified retired apparatus was last discussed in June 2020. Another resource to assist ES organizations using decommissioned apparatus is modifying them with traffic attenuators.

Your organization should take steps by reviewing the SOPs and SOGs related to roadway incidents followed by an ongoing training program related to those same guidelines.