Our Fire Department just bought two new sets of extrication tools and today we had a class taught by Homatro,the company that makes the tools.Although most of us have already had extensive training in extrication,it is always nice to get a refresher course.One of the local insurance companies donated six late model wrecks for us to cut up.I should say five and one older(91)explorer.First,off comes the top on a brand new Pontiac Vibe that had rear ended somebody.It was great,that car was actually repairable until we got our hands on it! Next,we had all four doors off and on the ground in 53 seconds flat!(The chief was timing us)Then we moved on to my favorite kind of slice and dice.IMPORTS!We chopped an 07 tundra into so many parts the chief made us stop!Then we went at a 07 honda.It had been t-boned hard in the drivers side,and as we approached it,the chief said,Ok,act as if the guy is still in the car,he is trapped in the right rear seat area.The right side doors are up against a building,and the guy is going downhill fast.BAM!We had the roof off,and the right front seat out in less than a minute!I love our new tools!man are they light!Our old set was a dual line system and it took two men and a small boy just to lift the jaws!I can operate the new set,by myself,one handed.Of course if I did,the chief would not be happy Did I mention (and by the way,you can give me mega rep points for this)I love cutting up imports!There is no way anybody is going to buy these heaps and salvage them!

 

I'll rep ya if ya post some pics

 

Unfortunately,we are not supposed to post non Ford truck pics here.It wastes alot of bandwidth.I can respect that.But there is a way to do it,Mil1ion does it all the time.I just have to learn how to upload the pictures into Photobucket (I think thats the name)and then figure out how to post a link to it.I have this at the top of my todo list.because I have some real cool pics to post!

 

So have you named those new tools yet ?

 

KT has just proved that he can be a REAL CUT UP sometimes!

 

Do you guy's have any problems with airbags when you're cutting through vehicles? My wife's car's a 4-seater and has 8 of those things, so no matter where you cut, you're probably going to hit an airbag.

And it's cool and all that you can cut through an import, but I'd be real impressed if you could cut through this FRICKIN' BAG OF LAYS POTATO CHIPS! Seriously, what kind of humanity hating person designs a food bag this hard to open! All I want to do is eat my chips while I'm reading the board. Is that to much to ask for?!!

 

email the pics to me at jm101 at wiu dot edu I'll host em for ya

 

I think we have the new jaws of life you are talking about also. Yes they can be a one man show if need be. We get most of our cars from the Town & County. It breaks my heart everytime they cut up a good running car or truck. The worst part is you can't even take a tail light bulb without being arrested.

 

There is some good air bag info on www.extrication.com. also some very interesting information on hybrid vehicles, which every responder needs to be aware of. There are a lot of inherent dangers involved with these rolling electric haz-mat scenes. I have helped teach several extrication classes. The last big one I was a student in, we had the sales rep. from Hurst come and help put on the class. We got to use every thing they made at the time (1998). We had an older Caddy upside down and had to figure out how to stabilize it and remove the roof and doors to gain entry. That was an intersting project. With the use of a lot of cribbing and several air bags we got it done. We also did a bus extrication class at the same time. Now if you havent been through a bus class, thats one you need to do. You have to look at things from a different perspective. I am going to shut up now, I can talk extrication all day long.

 

May you never need to use them

 

I hope that none of us are the first for you all to try them out.

 

A bus would be interesting!And we also got a new set of rams,more cribbing,and two stabilization jacks(adjustable).Oh,by the way,thanks for the link!I havent had time yet to totally surf through it,but hopefully it may have some info on a program I am looking for.The firechief in the next town over has a program for his computer that tells you on every make and model where the battery is or where the disconnect is for hybrids.I am purchasing a laptop and want to put that program on it.And I would like to find a program about airbag locations.Funny thing though,on one of the imports we cut up,it had the tags on the seat that said Airbag,but after complete dissection of the seat there was no airbag in it!

 

Another site that has some good extrication information and some jump off links to other sites is www.firehouse.com. I have found some good information and also used some things off there to put to gether training for my guys when I was Fire Cheif. You might check with TEEX its part of an extension group of Texas A&M. They came out and did a WMD Operations level class for us a couple of years ago and are supposed to be back again soon. TEEX does a lot of emergency services style training.

 

I'm sorry. I need to get my glasses changed and see a doctor.

When I read that first sentence (above), the first thing I thought of, was my first wife.

 

I can cut up a car like nobody's binnet, but I really can sink my teeth into dash roll-ups! Rams rock!