I immediately called for a dry hoseline to be stretched, and for the truck to be stabilized. While this was going on, I went to the back windshield and took a window punch and dropped it. After I cleared the window out of the frame, I crawled in, past the rear seats and made contact with the girl. She said her back and leg hurt, and I noticed that her seatbelt was still on, suspending her, and the car was still in drive. I put the car in park and took out the key, and decided to leave her seatbelt on because I didn't want to cause any movements to further injure her back.
As the guys outside began to cut the windshield out, I throw a blanket over the victim and then put my body over her to protect from falling glass. I spoke quietly to her and kept her updated on what we were doing and that she might feel some shaking and hear noises, but we'll have her out soon. Crews cut both the "A" posts and folded half the roof down. At this point, I got out of the truck and an EMT replaced me to put her collar on, as they were bringing the backboard to her.
5 comments:
I just have a question as to the lead-in information in your post. You said, "We were standing by in the next town over for a working house-fire that they had when a rollover occurred in our own town. Our town was low on manpower, and when the Chief got there he saw there was indeed an entrapment, so he called us back to town to take it." Were you released by the town with the working fire? Did they know you were leaving? Was your position that you were filling for them then filled by another company? Do you have preexisting mutual aid agreements or does your area just call individual companies for mutual aid as the IC sees fit? Just trying to understand because it sounds so much different than what I'm used to in my area.
Hi, of course we were released. Golden rule of the FD - when you're assigned a job you never leave it. We were assigned to stand by and that was our job, no matter what. In this case, the mutual aid town was merely doing overhaul and heard our transmissions on the radio and called out to my company releasing us from their town to take our own extrication in. These are the the dynamic things in a volunteer organization that require some flexibility and creative solutions sometimes.
A firefighter is always on the go. There's no boring moments like what happens when you work in an office. PLus, you get to help people in need. Being a firefighter is indeed satisfying.
Reading the details of your response to this woman's accident definitely hits close to home. As someone who's survived a rollover crash myself, I've got to personally thank you and all firefighters / EMS personnel who respond to these type of emergencies.
I know I was comforted by the words of the firefighters and later the EMTs who spoke gently and calmly to me as they helped me into the ambulance. Furthermore for those people who, like you, have volunteered to be a first responder to emergencies, my respect only grows higher.
this is good article, I am currently teaching about c02 fire extinguishers - its something I think is really important
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