By 2025, I will have dedicated 42 years to Emergency Services.
Much of this time has been spent as an EMS/Rescue Provider, and for 30 years I’ve been an Educator to many around the world, especially in North America, sharing the story of patient-centered vehicle rescue.
I didn’t coin that term but am echoing it from some of my mentors, who are considered the “Grandfathers of Vehicle Extrication.”
I started during a time when a “hard car” to cut meant a heavy vehicle made of thick metal and steel.
Paramedics or Advanced Life Support had been around for about a decade.
Our response area included an aeromedical helicopter from the nearest Level 1 Trauma Center.
Today, most vehicles are “hard” to cut, especially if we use methods from ten years ago.
This mindset is the first benchmark for 2025 that needs updating.
The way vehicles are constructed, what they’re designed to do in a crash, and the materials they’re made from have significantly changed how we approach creating space.
This is why it’s the first topic I’d like to discuss, and perhaps even reconsider how we approach education and vehicle rescue today.
If our tools can cut or remove vehicle components, why should we change? Because of time. Trauma is a disease of time.
While we can painstakingly remove pieces one by one, this approach, combined with modern vehicle design and construction, is time-consuming.
We must always seek new ways to create maximum space efficiently and safely.
Vehicle extrication is a medical intervention.
The same construction methods and materials that make traditional cut-and-remove tactics time-consuming have led today’s rescue technicians to focus on hyperextending, stretching, and displacing components.
Smooth is fast. Education is always essential. Practical, hands-on skills build muscle memory.
However, we need to “learn to read” crashed vehicles better. We must be smarter and understand how crashes injure occupants. Remember, vehicle extrication is a medical intervention.
We achieve this by developing abilities that allow us to perform tool operations that strategically weaken the vehicle structure, creating the maximum amount of space on the first attempt.
Reading crashed vehicles, utilizing On-Scene Hazard Identification Technology like electronic device applications, practicing hands-on skills, working with damaged vehicles in realistic scenarios, and using patient simulators are all crucial components of today’s educational tools.
In addition to all this, the “hot button” technology concern of Electric Vehicles will persist into 2025 and may remain largely the same.
It’s important to remember that these vehicles, for the most part, will not present significant extrication issues, except that they are generally sturdily built with substantial materials.
Consider these vehicles primarily as a fire-related concern today and in the foreseeable future. However, EVs require ongoing educational focus.
David Dalrymple, AIETecRI, is a Rescue Consultant and Educator for RoadwayRescue LLC with 41 years of experience in Emergency Services.
He has actively taught transportation rescue topics for over 27 years and is a member of the SAE task force on Hybrids and Electric vehicles for first and second responders.
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