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player ready...When car crash victims are trapped in twisted wreckage, every second counts. Firefighters, paramedics and other safety personnel are trained to think and act as quickly as possible when it comes to emergency rescues, but as vehicles change, so do roadway extrication tools and techniques.
“You’ve got to keep thinking ahead and know how to apply the latest rescue technology,” said Dan Czarnecki, a field instructor for the University of Illinois Fire Service Institute.
To hone their skills, 21 area firefighters and paramedics–19 men and 2 women–spent Thursday cutting off doors, breaking and removing windshields and sawing away the tops of 30 donated clunkers and crashed cars in the parking lot of the Carol Stream Fire Protection District headquarters.
The practice session, conducted by Czarnecki with the assistance of Carol Stream Fire Lt. John Morris and firefighter-paramedic Ann Hauser, was part of a weeklong series of classes in roadway extrication procedures held at the fire station. The program was presented by the Illinois Fire Service Institute, which holds about six such classes each year throughout the state, according to Czarnecki.
Firefighters had an opportunity to familiarize themselves with state-of-the-art rescue tools, including a pair of generator-powered giant scissors designed to cut quickly through metal. Earlier versions of the device weighed as much as 70 pounds, Czarnecki said; the latest models utilize lightweight metals used in aircraft and weigh only 40 pounds.
Firefighters said that in a bad crash, it can take 45 minutes to an hour to extricate a victim.
“About 10 or 15 times a year in Carol Stream we deal with a crash that is so bad that we have to pull out all of our rescue tools,” Hauser said.
West Chicago, Wheaton, Hinsdale, Bensenville and Bloomingdale firefighters also participated in Thursday’s practice sessions.