Does it sound crazy for a firefighter to say that? Maybe it does, but statistics show that approximately 100 U.S. firefighters die in the line of duty each year, with a smaller number of annual non-firefighter EMS LODDs.
There are approximately 1.15 million firefighters in the USA. That results in a LODD rate of 8.69 to the power of -5...a fraction so tiny that I don't think I can count that far without help from a math professor, a computer, and a calculator with advanced math functions. Or, to put it the same way my basic calculator put it, that number is 8.6956521739130434782608695652174e-5
Adding the 20 or 30 annual non-fire EMS provider LODDs to that number doesn't change the fraction in any way that is meanigful either mathematically or statistically.
So, eat at McDonald's all you wish, smoke and dip tobacco, don't work out or do any cardio, pack in the sugar and the caffiene, drive way faster than the speed limit, don't stop at controlled intersections, don't wear your seat belt or SCBA, don't perform size-ups, run blindly into every building no matter how little - or how much fire or smoke issue from it, freelance, ignore orders, and you'll probably live to tell the rest of us how tough and cool you are...
...this year.
