Firefighters and rescue teams are often the heroes in times of great need. However industry insiders have found that the desire to help the public is an Achillies' heal for many firefighters.

There is a nation-wide petition trying to get one million firefighter signatures urging response crews to think about their safety, too.

"No matter where you are in the fire station, or what you're doing everything gets dropped," says firefighter Dinah Watson.

When firefighters hear the alarm, they're thinking about anything but themselves.

"You're thinking about the incident and you're wondering what's going to be waiting for you when you arrive on scene," says Watson.

The petition makes firefighters promise to buckle up while on the job, just like everyday people who follow their personal routines when they get in their cars, such as buckling seat belts. If you're a firefighter, the situation often involves lives on the line and two minutes to get out the door.

"Those general safety issues we expect the general public to take care of, we have been a little remiss in taking care of ourselves," says Harrisonburg Battalion Chief Thomas Moffett.

Twenty-five percent of firefighters who die on the job die as a result of not wearing a seat belt.

"We tend to think because we're superman, we tend to think we're here to help and we have goodness on our side, we can sometimes be exempt from those hazards that are affecting other citizens and we can't. We need to take care of ourselves," says Moffett.

Moffett says general safety accidents have been on the rise in departments around the country and Harrisonburg is no exception to that.