Canton Fire Chief Wayne Dube
After the crash, danger remains
Today’s rescue crews need the right tools and knowledge about the perils they face.
In the past, firefighters used hacksaws, sledgehammers, tire irons, levers or basically anything they had to extricate victims trapped in cars.
But cars have changed.
Just getting a door open can prove fatal for responders or trapped victims.
“The newer the car, the more cautious we are,” said Dean Milligan, an Auburn firefighter who is the director of Med-Care Ambulance in Mexico.
Some of the challenges that responders may face include air bags, safety belt pretensioners, fuel and fuel pumps, electric-powered and hybrid vehicles, gas struts and shock absorbers in bumpers.
Almost as fast as automakers improve safety features, extrication tool manufacturers are adapting.
Training instructors such as Brian Mullison of Fire Tech and Safety of New England Inc. are continually revamping their programs.
With carbon-dioxide cartridges and sensors in door posts, air bags, which can deploy at 200 mph, pose some of the biggest challenges. Cutting a door post to get the roof off is now dangerous.
“You have to take on every car as if it has air bags. In the past, the theory was to get all the junk out of the way to get the car wide open. Now, the less you have to cut with today’s technology, the better. It limits your exposure in that hot zone of being hurt yourself,” said Milligan.
Today’s cars can have front air bags, head-impact bags, head/thorax side bags, door-mounted side-impact bags, knee air bags and air bags with dual-stage inflators.
“Firefighters get into trouble with air bags every day,” said Bethel Assistant Chief Mike Jodrey. “We can put boots over steering wheels and the dash, but there’s no way to protect yourself against air bags in doors and side posts when you’re half inside a car working on a patient.”
Other hazards:
• Capacitors, which store electrical charges. In the past, Milligan said, a firefighter would disconnect the power source, then wait three minutes for the capacitor charge to drain. Now, disconnecting the battery no longer de-energizes electrical systems because capacitors can hold a charge for up to 30 minutes.
• Seat belt pretensioners, some of which use a pyrotechnic propellant, automatically tighten seat belts on impact. But mechanical and pyrotechnic pretensioners remain active even when the entire electrical system is deactivated.
Mullison of Fire Tech and Safety in Winthrop said pretensioners are equivalent to 12-gauge shotgun shells.
• Plastic components, when ablaze, can release toxic fumes, including hydrogen cyanide gas, Jodrey added.
• Gas struts can explode in fires and shoot out the ram portion if cut while under pressure, Mullison said. They can also cause hoods, hatchbacks and trunk lids to fly open unexpectedly if they are being forced.
• Bumpers with hydraulic shock absorbers are what Wilton Deputy Chief Kendall Burdin calls “loaded bumpers.” In a fire, heat can cause shock absorbers to explode, sending the bumper out as far as 150 feet.
Today’s extrication equipment includes spreaders, cutters, spreader/cutter combinations, rams, air bags and reciprocating saws.
Spreaders are giant pliers that open or close, squeeze or spread. Cutters are giant pairs of shears. Rams are wedged between things to roll something off a patient, like dashboards. Air bags are used for lifting and/or separating things.
A complete set of Jaws of Life tools – spreaders, cutters and rams – starts at $30,000, said Bethel Assistant Chief Mike Jodrey.
Because of the cost and variety of tools available and the complexities of situations facing rescuers, teamwork is often key in extrication.
Wilton, Bethel and Rumford, for instance, have been doing extrication work for about 25 years. Keeping pace with auto technology improvements, they’ve invested in training and hydraulic equipment.
Departments with battery-powered tools often need backup from those with hydraulic equipment.
“When you have an extrication to do, you don’t want to rely on one tool. That’s why Rumford backs us up and why we’ve made our tool available to any mutual-aid town,” said Canton Fire Chief Wayne Dube.
“In 90 percent of our extrication work, we just need to get that door open. That’s what was hanging us up until we got this equipment,” Dube added.
For more information: North American Research Institute’s Web site www.nari-international.org/car.html.
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