UPDATED 5/21/2010
Rescue Squad 741B and 4 EMS units were needed to handle a serious intersection accident during a rainy Monday morning rush hour.
An ambulance and engine from the National Institutes of Health were dispatched at about 7:20 a.m. to Center Drive on the NIH campus for a personal injury collision. As they were responding, the location was updated to the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and Jones Bridge Road, and with a report of one person trapped. NIH arrived on scene and advised that there were 2 vehicles involved with multiple injuries and entrapments. A sedan carrying the driver and one passenger had been struck on its passenger side door by a van carrying a total of 5 persons. The sedan passenger was pinned in the vehicle.
After quickly stabilizing the car, RS 741B's crew used a five-step process to remove the entire side of a car that can be especially effective when there is a side impact. First they cut the B post. Then they spread through the rear door window to pop open the rear door. They next made a relief cut low on the B post. And then they spread the B post out of the rocker panel. Finally, that enabled the crew to pull the rear door and B post towards the front of the car as one single unit so that they could cut the hinges on the front door, removing the whole side of the vehicle. This strategy provided the medics with easy access to the patient with a minimal amount of additional impingement upon the side of his body.
Although this isn’t a new extrication strategy, it worked well because of recent training. The Rescue Squad’s officer had recently completed a week-long seminar in Ohio on vehicle extrication techniques, where he had both perfected ways to execute this strategy and how to identify when it can be most effective.
In addition to a working extrication, the operation was complicated by having 5 separate patients to assess and stabilize. The driver of the sedan, as well as the passenger who was pinned, were declared to be traumas and treated by medics. Two additional basic ambulances were subsequently called to the scene in order transport 3 of the 5 passengers in the van.
