Monday, February 04, 2008

A RECENT "CHiPs" CRASH- Hey, this one happened this century

I'm back again, and this time with fresh tales of adventure from the WWW. Did you ever watch the show "CHiPs" about the two motorcycle highway patrolmen? Two things happened in every episode: 1. Ponch pulled some strange; and 2. there was a huge, stylized and and very complicated auto accident (usually on fire) in which no one was seriously injured.

As most of you know, we have a 6-8 lane stretch of I-95 with separate HOV lanes running through Woodbridge. It provides endless entertainment. For years, my brother J and I have been referring to big gnarly crashes on the interstate as "the CHiPs wreck", both as an homage to the show and as a shorthand to describe big, complicated, crash scenes. My brother and I now have 40 years experience between us, and there have been about 5 accidents that we have seen that warrant the actual label "CHiPs Crash". It just doesen't happen that often. One happened the other night....

So there we were, our old duty crew. On the pumper was my friend and fishing buddy Larry, who was driving, our boss Steve riding officer, a rookie fireman and two brand-new probationers (i.e., haven't completed initial firefighter training) On the ladder truck, J was driving, I was riding officer, and we had a couple of really competent firemen in the back. We were in the middle of a duty crew meeting at about 9:30 p.m., when our station alert tones went off.

Did I ever tell you about our station renovation? I won't bore you with it now, but when our house was renovated, we got this fancy alerting system that not only makes alert sounds, but also provides a visual cue in the form of colored lights to tell you in advance who will be dispatched.

When the tones went off this time, all of the lights came on... white for ambulance, blue for medic, red for engine company, green for truck company... Everybody goes! Whoop-de-doo, happens all the time. Usually that means a first-due fire call, but we hear on the way to the rigs that it is for an auto accident. When the ladder truck is dispatched to an auto accident, it is ordinarily because we are the closest available extrication-capable unit, which was the case here. The callback on dispatch provided the location as I-95 northbound, just north of our easiest access point, reported to be one vehicle overturned. As we loaded up, my mind focused on the limited capacity our ladder truck has to deal with overturned vehicles. Unlike a heavy Rescue Company, we do not carry a full compliment of hydraulic rescue tools, but more importantly, we do not carry a full compliment of cribbing and shoring to do a full-on extrication on an overturned or on-its-side vehicle. Fortunately, a rescue company was also dispatched.

So, we got on the road. We went somewhat out of order, in that we went engine, truck, ambulance, medic. Usually, we let the EMS units go first because the trucks are simply faster. Getting to the highway is easy. Leave the firehouse, go right at a traffic light, go about a mile down the road and past our hospital, and turn right to get on the highway northbound. Before we could get to the first light, we started getting dispatch updates through our computer aided dispatch (CAD) computer. It makes a little noise like "bleep-bleep" when it updates. The updates were coming fast and furious. Seriously, like every two or three seconds, there was an update. Each update represents a bit of information relayed to a call taker and then entered into the dispatch computer. Based on the number of updates, my guess was that our dispatch center was taking dozens of calls for this accident. While this ordinarily happens on the interstate, where everyone who sees the accident calls it in on their cell phone, the dispatchers don't usually forward every piece of information. In this case, though, the information kept getting more and more dire.

It starts with (bleep-bleep) "Now reported to be two cars overturned". Then adds: (bleep-bleep)"Total of five vehicles involved". And goes on to say: (bleep-bleep)"One of the overturned vehicles is on fire". A dispatcher comes over the radio to advise us of the report that one of the cars is on fire, which is simultaneously supplemented with a CAD update of (bleep-bleep)"cannot confirm all occupants out of cars, including one on fire", and then another to say (bleep-bleep) "passerby are attempting rescue now". On receipt of this information, I had the guys in the back put on their airpacks and get ready to fight fire. I started getting the rest of my gear on. I was dressed and had my airpack straps on by the time we were passing the hospital.

We went through a traffic light in front of the hospital, which is about two blocks from the highway entrance. J looked in the direction of the dispatched location, and said: "Oh yeah, its on fire, you can see the column from here." He was right. Despite it being nightime and the fact that we were a mile and a half away, there was one of those black columns of smoke illuminated by fire that means that it is time to go to work. I quickly ran through my plan for what to do with a car on fire with a victim trapped.

There actually is a plan for what to do with a car on fire with a victim trapped. The plan is essentially to dive into the car and pull out anyone you find as fast as you can. The plan is best executed under the protection of a hose line, but when you have a person stuck in a burning car, time is (of course) of the essence. An understatement, right?

So Steve and Larry get to the scene first. Steve, using his very best "iceman" radio-calm voice says: "engine 12 on the scene with two vehicles overturned, one on fire, no confirmation of occupants out of vehicle... give me a tanker for water supply and two additional EMS units. We will be out on extinguishment" About this time, J and I get to where we can see the fire. It is an SUV, on its side, pointing east in the northbound lane with its roof facing south. The back of the roof is leaning on a guardrail, which is keeping the vehicle from falling back onto its roof. It is on fire. It is vigorously on fire, almost strangely so. At any rate, it is what we call "getting it".

Steve said they had no confirmation of people out. This is one of those times when it is good to ride with your brother. Not much talking required, each of us knew what the other would do. Before our arrival, I put on my SCBA facepiece and got onto breathing air. J drives us past the engine, which by this time was deploying hose toward the fire, and parks us right next to the burning truck. There will be no one alive inside that truck, and if they are alive, they do not wish to be saved at this point. J gets out, I get out, J runs up to the SUV and quickly checks its stability while at the same time calling the engine crew a bunch of pussies for not getting closer to the fire. What he really was doing was trying to get them up close to the windshield, which had fallen/melted out of the car. The engine crew got up close to the windshield and began to spray into the passenger compartment of the SUV. The SUV's horn was going off continuously. I took a 90 degree flashlight, knelt down between the engine crew and the truck's open windshield, and did the dive into the burning truck routine, having been assured by my brother that the vehcile was stable. There was still some fire, visibility sucked, but using the flashlight I was able to check every seat and every space in the truck in a matter of seconds. Satisfied that no one was there, I climed back out the way I went in. The engine then finished the extinguishment in pretty short order.

Once I was out of the car, I took my gloves, helmet, hood and facepiece off and looked around to take full stock of the accident. The scene was approximately a quarter of a mile long. Shure as shit, there was another overturned car right up the road. The rescue company showed up. There were some other cars involved, all on their wheels. State troopers started coming out of the woodwork, along with some county police. My portable radio squalked about how something like nine patients were being evaluated. My guys went to work re-checking the security of the car and controlling hazards. We started looking around to make sure that we had found everyone involved in the accident and referred them to EMS. We evaluated some minor burns on J's hands. We did a little bit of traffic control until the interstate was completely shut down.

In the end, it turned out that the SUV that burned had been occupied by just one female, aged about 20, who was travelling through from Texas. After the accident, she ended up hanging by her seatbelt in her truck. A couple of people stopped to help, and as they tried to coach/assist her out of her seatbelt, a wire harness that had broken in the cargo area began to arc, setting the rear passenger compartment of the truck on fire. According to these guys, she freaked out (as I suppose that any of us would), dropped to the floor (which would then be the passenger side of the vehicle), and began to kick at the windshield to get out. Three of the bystanders helped her to get the windshield out of the truck, which explained why I found it on the ground all smoked over and broken. Those guys said that in the two minutes before our arrival the truck went from not on fire to fully involved, and they were stunned with the speed at which the fire progressed. Of course, no one bothered to tell us in avance that the girl was out, but I got to thinking that perhaps "the dive" wasn't so stupid and futile after all.

So, there were some oddities with this wreck that qualify it as a "CHiPs" level crash. First and foremost, it was an auto accident with secondary fire. Contrary to routine Hollywood portrayals, this almost never happens, and is absolutely the exception rather than the rule in auto accident operations. Secondly, there were two cars overturned in the same incident. I can only think of two other times in thousands of accidents that I have seen this. Thirdly, the scope of the accident scene was large, covering four lanes and more than a quarter mile. Lastly, almost no one was hurt, and there was a happy ending for everyone. The real heroes of the day were the civilians who stopped on the roadside to help a stranger out of a burning car. Without them, this girl almost certainly would have been gravely injured or died. Ironically, it turns out that they were the most severely injured persons in the incident, having cut their hands on the broken windshield while trying to get the girl out. Those guys deserve some serious credit.

So, instead of completing our meeting, we ended up out on the interstate. Someone asked if the SUV driver's ID was in her purse. One of my guys held up a melted purse-looking thing and said "Hey, you mean this?", to which we all laughed... and then FREEZE FRAME ON LAUGHING FIREMEN, ROLL END THEME MUSIC AND CREDITS...Duh-Duh-Da-Da-Dah

If you think that diving into burning cars is dumb, by all means, please leave a comment. I'll return later with more stories from the 21st century.

DTXMATT12

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I had to laugh when I read this post-we had our own "CHIPS" moment in Jan 04 after a rollover x 3(at 75 mph mind you) single mva-We couldn't get the doors open and my hubby literally kicked his open-I always thought it was just a tv thing myself- Thank God we all walked away from it much to the surprise of the local EMS and Law enforcement- Found the site this last week through Medic Chris and NightRuns- both sites are awesome- but have to ask is Medic Chris still blogging?

09 February, 2008 11:00  
Blogger DTXMATT12 said...

ANON: Thanks for coming by the blog, and thanks also for leaving a comment. As you noticed, Chris has been off the blog for a while now. I had dinner with him the other day, and urged him to get back. Goodness knows, he has plenty to write about. He'll be back, I'm certain.

Keep coming back! I'm glad that you enjoyed the blog.

DTXMATT12

10 February, 2008 19:06  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You're welcome! Please keep up the good work and for the info- It's refreshing to read how the world really goes!

Take care Matt.

10 February, 2008 21:24  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Matt, are you guys still alive out there after all the storms?

04 May, 2008 19:24  

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