This week’s drill night featured some in-house MVA (Motor Vehicle Accident) training by Captain 5-80 Andrew Adams and Firefighter/Paramedic Brent Skelton.
Members reviewed techniques for vehicle stabilization; the first step towards rescuing a trapped motorist. Making the scene safe is job #1 in the Fire/EMS world because we can’t help victims if we become victims. Additionally, vehicle stabilization is key to ensuring that the occupants remain as safe as possible during extrication. They began by practicing with our auto cribs and wooden cribbing. Although we have purpose-built tools and equipment for stabilization, the group discussed improvising with items commonly found in any apparatus, in the vehicle itself, or on most accident scenes. Once the vehicle is stabilized in all directions, firefighters can then proceed to perform actions to remove the patients from entrapment.
Skelton and Adams then walked through packaging a patient with a KED, which is an immobilization device that allows us to maintain spinal immobilization during extrications in tight spaces where a backboard is too bulky to use. Maintaining spinal stability during these situations is vital to ensuring the best patient outcome. Our goal is to protect the patient as much as possible while quickly and safely extracting the patient so we can assess, evaluate, package and transport as quickly as possible.
Earlier in the evening, Harrison Township VFD Dept 20 Chief 20 Neal Potter brought Rescue 20-28, their newest apparatus, by our hall to show members and provide them with some familiarity on how it operates. This unit carries a mobile cascade system which is used to fill SCBA (air pack) cylinders with air. Since we don’t have a cascade system in-house, we rely heavily on HTVFD to allow us to fill cylinders at their station, and they regularly support us with this equipment on-scene as well. Thank you HTVFD and Chief Potter!
Thank you to Firefighter Hunter McNeely for volunteering for the not-so-fun job of playing the patient for this exercise. When we say that a KED immobilizes the patient, we aren’t joking! It isn’t the most comfortable device to be in, but it saves lives and prevents spinal injury.
Thank you to Andrew Adams and Brent Skelton for sharing your knowledge with the group. Additional thanks to Adams for recently spending two weekends completing a vehicle rescue technician training course. The skills that he learned will be shared with all, and this will help us to do a better job of helping those in need.
We would like to express our gratitude to the Deerfield Charitable Trust for funding the purchase of some of our wooden cribbing and canvas carrying bags, and for all of the support that you have given us over the last two years. We also would like to thank those who have supported our Online Raffles, as proceeds from those fundraisers have gone to purchasing our auto cribs and a Hurst E-draulic Multitool. Only through your support can we afford to maintain state-of-the-art equipment to serve you better.
More pictures from the training. Photo Credit: Chief 5 Bill Goltz