Vehicle Rescue Safety - Part I
Vehicle Rescue Safety - Part I
by RON MOORE
(Members Zone Contributor Firehouse.Com Contributor)
The scene safety officer deals with hazards. Any situation or set of circumstances with
the potential to do harm is a hazard. All vehicle crash-scene hazards fall into one of three
general categories; environmental hazards, scene hazards, and hazards presented by the
vehicle itself.
Environmental hazards are related to the weather, and time of day and include extremes
of heat, cold, wet, dry, and darkness that
increase risks to crews and patients.
Incident scene hazards relate directly to
the specific incident scene and include
control of crowds, traffic, the danger of
downed electrical wires, the presence of
hazardous materials, even the very
location of an emergency.
A vehicle perched precariously on the
edge of a bridge railing or one that has
crashed into a structure causing a partial
building collapse are examples of scene
hazards requiring special safety activities
early in the incident.
Photo By Ron Moore
Environmental hazards are related to the
weather, and time of day and include extremes
The final category is extremely important
of heat, cold, wet, dry, and darkness that
and includes the hazards that most often
increase risks to crews and patients.
confront emergency service personnel.
Vehicle hazards, those directly related to the vehicle itself, include undeployed airbags,
fuel system concerns, electrical system and battery electricity, stability of the vehicle,
sharp glass and metal, leaking hot antifreeze, and engine oil, transmission oil or
antifreeze spills.
Even contents inside vehicle trunk or cargo area are typical of vehicle hazards that can be
encountered.
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Vehicle Rescue Safety - Part I
'Responding
Safety
To/Returning
From'
Each emergency vehicle driver and that
crew's officer or the senior crewmember
'riding seat' must be held responsible for
the safe and efficient operation of that
vehicle. For the personal safety of the
responding personnel, it should be
required that the operator check and
confirm that all personnel riding in the
vehicle are fully dressed in appropriate
protective clothing and are seated and
belted before the vehicle begins its
response.
Photo By Ron Moore
Incident scene hazards relate directly to the
specific incident scene and include control of
crowds, traffic, the danger of downed electrical
Crewmembers must remain seated and
wires, the presence of hazardous materials,
belted throughout the entire response to
even the very location of an emergency.
the scene. The officer of the vehicle must
be held ultimately responsible for the overall safe operation of the vehicle while
responding to and returning from an incident.
The speed of a responding vehicle is also an important safety issue. If two emergency
vehicles travel a total distance of 10 miles on an expressway, one vehicle traveling at the
posted speed and the other vehicle exceeding the posted speed by 5 mph, the faster driver
would arrive only 54 seconds ahead of
the slower and safer one.
If you, as the driver of the speeding
vehicle, were involved in a crash while
responding, could you justify your
operating procedures in court before a
jury? Following the same reasoning,
response protocols should be developed
that prohibit emergency warning lights
and sirens from being used for responses
to or from drills, training sessions or
assignments to cover or fill in at a
neighboring station.
Photo By Ron Moore
In a court of law, the actions of the Vehicle hazards, those directly related to the
operator of an emergency vehicle if vehicle itself, include undeployed airbags, fuel
involved in a crash while responding to a system concerns, electrical system and battery
call will be held to the definition of the electricity, stability of the vehicle, sharp glass
term 'true emergency'. Responders must and metal, leaking hot antifreeze, and engine
oil, transmission oil or antifreeze spills.
fully understand this court-tested criteria
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for evaluating if there is negligence on their part.
As defined by the U.S. Department of Transportation Emergency Vehicle Operator's
Course, a true emergency is any situation in which there is a high probability of death or
significant injury to an individual or group of individuals or a significant loss of property,
which can be reduced by the actions of an emergency service. This definition has gained
legal acceptance nationwide. How many of our lights and siren Code 3 responses really
fit this court definition?
If an emergency vehicle is involved in a crash while responding to a scene or returning
from an incident, statistics show that the crash will most likely occur at an intersection.
The road where the crash occurs will typically be a level and dry road surface. The
intersection will have either stop signs, yield signs or be controlled by an operating traffic
light.
Because these locations are the most
frequent crash site for responding
vehicles, there is a clear need to
implement special precautions at all
intersections. Electronic systems such as
the 3M 'Opti-COM?' traffic control
systems are available to give responding
emergency vehicles the capability of preempting and controlling traffic signals.
With these types of systems, as the
emergency vehicle approaches a traffic
light, the emitter on the vehicle sends a
signal to the traffic signal control box.
Photo By Ron Moore
If an emergency vehicle is involved in a crash The controller then pre-empts the normal
while responding to a scene or returning from red, yellow and green light sequence and
an incident, statistics show that the crash will turns the light green for the approaching
emergency vehicle and red in all other
most likely occur at an intersection.
directions. When the fire department in
Syracuse, New York, equipped their emergency vehicles with such a system, the accident
rate for fire vehicles during emergency responses fell dramatically.
In lieu of these systems, operators must be prepared to bring their emergency vehicle to a
complete stop at any red light, stop sign, yield sign or negative right of way situation. The
emergency vehicle may proceed through the intersection only after accounting for all
traffic. No emergency vehicle should be allowed to drive at more than 10 miles per hour
above the legal posted speed for any street, road or highway. This speed limit should be
reduced for conditions of inclement weather or limited visibility. A maximum speed limit
for emergency vehicles should be set at 65 miles per hour for expressway-type driving
regardless of the legal posted speed limit. At this speed, it is true that motorists may be
actually passing responding emergency vehicles. However, this Code 3 speed limit is
easily justified as being a reasonable and prudent maximum response speed.
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Standard operating procedures must also be established for situations when two
emergency vehicles approach the same intersection from different directions. Preplanning
of response routes and knowing the response routes routinely used by crews from
surrounding stations or communities can also aid in preventing problems at an
intersection. To address this situation, there are several protocols that can be written into
a department's emergency vehicle
operation procedures.
For example, when one vehicle is
approaching an intersection where other
responding
units
are
typically
encountered, the apparatus officer can
transmit a message on a common radio
frequency notifying the other apparatus
that they are approaching and from a
given direction. This advisory cautions
others to be alert for the opposing traffic.
Another example of protocols written to
address intersection responses states that
the first emergency vehicle at an
Photo By Ron Moore
intersection will have the right of way
Electronic systems such as the 3M 'Optiover the later arriving vehicle. If there is COM?' traffic control systems are available to
a traffic signal operating at the
give responding emergency vehicles the
intersection, the emergency vehicle with
capability of pre-empting and controlling
the green light will have the right of way
traffic signals.
over the vehicle approaching against the
red signal. When two vehicles approach the same intersection during a response, the
vehicle that must make a turn must yield to the vehicle that will continue straight through
the intersection.
Some emergency vehicle drivers have the mistaken idea that a 'parade' of emergency
vehicles, responding in bumper-to-bumper fashion to a scene, is a safe response. The
truth is that when emergency vehicles follow each other too closely, the motoring public
has little or no opportunity to realize that there is more than one emergency vehicle.
Citizens in private vehicles may clearly hear and see one vehicle go by and then blindly
pull into the path of another emergency vehicle. Adequate spacing between responding
vehicles must be maintained so that each vehicle is observed and reacted to as an
individual response unit.
Escorting of emergency vehicles, particularly ambulances, by police vehicles also
presents a high degree of risk. Unless the emergency vehicle driver and crew officer are
completely unfamiliar with the incident location or some other justifiable situation exists,
police escorts of emergency vehicles should be avoided as unsafe.
Confusion among responding vehicles (for example, whether the incident is at 112 Down
Street or 112 Brown Street) increases the chance of response accidents. Responding
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vehicles may be caught unaware when a misinformed crew makes an erratic turn onto
Brown Street when everyone else expected them to continue another four blocks to the
correct location on Down Street. Having a dispatch protocol that requires broadcast of not
only the street address but also the nearest cross street, can minimize such confusion. In
addition, as a unit comes on the air to report that they are enroute to the scene, they can
be required to repeat the address. This verifies that all units are heading to the same
emergency scene.
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