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Home  In The News Res-Q-JackŪ Control Roll of a Side Resting Vehicle
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Res-Q-JackŪ Control Roll of a Side Resting Vehicle |
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Controlled Roll of a Side-Resting Vehicle
By Cris Pasto, Design Engineer, Res-Q-Jack, Inc., Firefighter, Spencer, NY
A couple of years back, our department responded mutual aid to a car into a tree adjacent a steep embankment making driver side operations impossible. The vehicle hit the tree at the driver’s door & A-post. The driver had serious injuries. A futile attempt to free the driver was being made with a passenger side dash roll as the driver’s foot was encapsulated in the floorboard. The patient had been in the car far too long and I requested that we move the car away from the tree with the rescue winch to get access to the driver’s door. I was denied the option by the resident company because “you can’t move the vehicle with a patient in it !” However, I was permitted to set things up while they continued down their hopeless path. Another ten or fifteen minutes later which seemed like hours to me, we were told to move the vehicle. We had a firefighter holding the patient stable while the winch operator slowly pulled the vehicle from the tree until we had some working space. Once the vehicle was clear of the tree, we had the door popped, foot freed, and patient extricated in minutes.
Okay so lets accept the fact that a vehicle with live patients in it can be moved if done in a controlled fashion. We know this is often done in underride situations and we see above it can be done in that situation, but how far can we go with this concept? What about moving a side resting passenger car back to its wheels or at least partially?
Every now and then a discussion pops up regarding what the best extrication solution is for a side-resting passenger vehicle with a lower side front passenger entrapment. If the entrapment is minor dash interference then maybe the old-school steering column chain pull is the answer. However, throw foot encapsulation in the floorboard in the mix or some other complication and you may have a lengthy difficult operation on your hands. When I think about such scenarios I try to imagine that the entrapped victim is one of my family members for which I naturally want the best outcome not that I would want any less for another victim but this really makes it hit home for me. I always end up coming to the conclusion that I want that vehicle put back on its wheels to allow for the application of everyday rescue methods.
Well, curiosity finally got the best of me and I talked the folks at the 2008 South Dakota Rescue School into helping me determine how well it would work. I put a firefighter in the driver’s seat on the low side, with a firefighter behind him in the rear seat to manage c-spine stabilization of the driver. We then positioned a pickup at the undercarriage side of the vehicle with 2 lines attached between it and the front and rear posts of the vehicle on its side. We did the same with a pickup at the passenger compartment side of the vehicle. All lines were then carefully tensioned and the side-resting vehicle was restrained from frontward or rearward movement. The pickup at the undercarriage side slowly pulled the vehicle to its wheels while the pickup at the passenger compartment side maintained tension until the vehicle was safely on its wheels. The firefighters inside the side-resting car indicated that they felt the maneuver was very smooth and they felt very strongly that it would be a viable technique. Those involved in the above experiment as well as those observing unanimously agreed that they would not hesitate to implement the concept if ever warranted.
The above experiment only satisfied a portion of my curiosity. It only led me to ask a series of follow-up questions. What if the vehicle was in a location where you could not get the pull vehicles positioned properly? What if the situation would not allow for the vehicle to be completely righted? How far do you have to turn a side-resting passenger vehicle in order to have room to perform a dash lift? Could you do it with Res-Q-Jack lifting struts?
I grabbed Chief Dominick Smith of Watkins Glen, NY and asked him to help me determine if we could take the Res-Q-Jack® lifting struts and tilt the car back towards its wheels until we had room to perform a low-side dash lift. To add difficulty, we did not have a ram handy, so we had to pull it off with spreaders and cutters. He gladly offered assistance and we went at it with a sense of adventure.
We elected to use Res-Q-Jack’s struts with the new X-Strut® technology. These struts are basically a “combination” strut. They transform with ease from a passive shoring strut to an active lifting rescue strut in seconds and without confusion. It was just the two of us so we could only employ two struts as they require simultaneous operation. One strut with a fully extended lift jack and an extended strut was applied to the undercarriage side near the engine compartment. Another strut with a collapsed lifting jack and collapsed strut was applied at the passenger compartment side of the vehicle opposite the other strut. As the strut on the passenger side was extended, the opposite strut was lowered until the jack travel limit was reached. The strut was then pinned while the jacks were quickly reset and the operation continued until the jack travel limit was once again reached. The result was amazing. We now had the vehicle tilted at about a 30 degree angle and plenty of clearance beneath the door.
Next we took the roof, popped the door, and we were even able to make relief cuts in the A-post. We could readily see that a ram would easily tackle the job off the base of the B-post, but all we had were cutters and spreaders so we employed the standard spreader dash push. When cribbing beneath the A-post is not possible and significant relief cuts are not possible, lower A-post/floorboard tearing is common (similar to dash lift with upside down vehicle). To limit tearing we placed a piece of 4x4 at the floorboard to distribute the force of the spreaders. We were thoroughly excited about the successful outcome!
If apparatus or winches can be positioned correctly to get the car back to its wheels, that may be the best for the patient. Unfortunately, I believe that most scenarios are not going to allow for such convenience. X-Strut™ lifting struts or a combination of these struts with a winch or other pulling device may turn out to be the best solution.
I believe there will be 3 basic possibilities:
1. Apparatus or winch access from 2 sides
2. Apparatus or winch access from 1 side – in this case strut is positioned on same side of vehicle as winch. If winch is pulling from undercarriage, then strut will act to restrain on undercarriage side. If only access is passenger compartment side, then strut will be pushing on that side and winch will control.
3. No apparatus or winch access from either side – struts both sides.
Another variable to consider in all of the above possibilities is that there may not be space or it may not be permissible to put the vehicle completely back on its wheels for a variety of reasons. With that in mind, struts should be on hand to at least hold the vehicle in its final position as it may be necessary to eliminate the winch lines to complete the extrication.
Will it work if a patient is in the space? A patient would certainly complicate the situation but a backboard and straps may be the solution to holding the patient up to provide tool space. What if struts can’t be placed on one side for a variety of reasons? Can the vehicle be pulled to struts from just the undercarriage side only? Can the vehicle be pushed against a tie line in the event a strut can’t be placed at undercarriage side? I believe the answer to these questions is yes, but we’ll be playing around in the yard to be sure.
For follow-up reports on the controlled roll maneuver and other exciting techniques, stay tuned to www.res-q-jack.com. If you would like to join us in our research at Res-Q-Jack’s Stabilization University, you can attend one of our many Roll-EX™ events or feel free to schedule a time that works for you and your department to come to our “lab” where we can all share ideas and learn techniques that make our jobs easier and save lives! For more information call us at 800-466-9626.
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