Excerpts from the Tampa Bay Times:
A group of retired and active (St. Petersburg FL) firefighters have sued the maker and distributor of their city-issued helmets, saying design flaws have led to injury.
The five firefighters say the helmets they were given a few years ago, the 1044 Cairns model manufactured by Pennsylvania-based Mine Safety Appliance Co. and distributed by Bradenton-based Ten-8 Fire Equipment Inc., were designed poorly and caused neck and head injuries.
“The problem with the design is that they’re heavier than the other helmets, and they’re not as balanced,” said New Port Richey attorney Jim Magazine, who likened the situation to top-heavy bobblehead toys. “This helmet’s a recipe for disaster.”
The firefighters filed their product liability claim in Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court. Their employer, the city of St. Petersburg, is not a party to the suit. Magazine said that’s because the city would have had to have knowledge that the helmets were defective.
Yet this week, fire Chief Jim Large said he has heard no complaints about that specific helmet model. Large said the helmets are used now by about 90 percent of firefighters at the department.
Retired firefighter Scott Crowell was the first to file suit about the helmets in 2013. He said a helmet he got three years earlier caused neck injuries. The other firefighters … filed their suits this month. The firefighters say the helmets are uneven and cause musculoskeletal injuries. They said the problem came with helmets the city issued from 2010 on.
Large said the department did switch from “Philadelphia-style” helmets to “New York-style” ones that year. The differences, he said, are subtle. From some angles, the former one looks more rounded.
Magazine said he expects more firefighters to come forward because they believe this is not just a problem with a batch of 1044 Cairns helmets. “The model these guys got is a bad model,” Magazine said. “We believe this is going to be a nationwide case.”
