Vigorous Activity At Work Can Be Fatal

Workplaces where employees are involved in vigorous physical activity should prepare for the possibility of heart attacks and strokes on the job and should screen for high-risk workers carefully, a U.S. study finds. Researchers gathered data on on-duty deaths of firefighters that had been forwarded to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention between 1998 to 2012  There were 199 fatal cardiovascular events while firefighters – average age 49 – were on duty, including 167 were heart attacks, 12 from irregular heartbeat, three from stroke, and  the rest from other cardiovascular causes. A total of 148 of the events occurred after vigorous activity lasting an average of 33 minutes.