Lee;
As a volunteer fire fighter, I spent many years in the fire service
with
very little training. Once I received training, it has been my goal
to
provide the best training available to anyone looking for it.
In Nov. 2002 as an extrication
instructor; I became very interested in the
new SRS systems and started a very extensive study of these systems.
I spent a year putting a class together, (Air Bags and New Technology).
In my studies one thing stood out, if our people do exactly
as we teach
them injury or death is emanate.
A good example of this is;
For years; we taught rescuers that if an airbag was deployed
there was no more danger, it could not deploy a second time. (No worry about the inflation zone).
This is no longer true, today we face dual stage airbags
that can not only deploy a second time, but it is impossible to differentiate between them and the earlier type.
This is where our logo came from, (Is it time to change our training yet?)
In Oct. 2003, I was putting a two hour class together on the dangers of vehicle fires. In my air bag class,
I had some pictures of airbag
inflators exploding, whole airbag housings going through the roof of the car, a hood strut stick in a firefighter’s
leg and an airbag going through the roof of the car and ending up in shrapnel 100 ft behind it. In looking at these pictures; I realized we are in more danger of
airbag systems in fire than we are in extrication. (There is no way to shut them down)
I started studying this and again the same thing; If our people do exactly what we teach them,
they are sure to be injured. Example:
Today (nation wide), we are still teaching an approach
to a burning car that was developed in the early 1970s, to protect us from exploding bumper struts and ironically 95% of the
vehicles on the road today do not use bumper struts.
But, let’s look at what we are teaching:
With
a straight stream, we wash out under the vehicle from a long distance to extinguish any spillage; we then begin our approach
diagonally to one corner of the vehicle to avoid the bumper struts, we cool the tire and knock the fire down. Once we have
knocked the fire down; we reach through the window or usually open the door and in a circular motion, put the fire out.
With the door open on either side, let’s look at where we are standing.
Depending on the make and model, directly in front of our face is a dual stage frontal airbag, over our head is a curtain
airbag, to one side of us could be a curtain airbag inflator mounted in the A post, in the middle of our legs may be a knee
airbag, behind us could be a door airbag, or to our side could be a seat airbag, beside our knee is a pyrotechnic seat belt
tensioner and this could be just the beginning, We have inflators along the roof rails on both sides. We have inflators in
the C and D posts. Some have rear seat or door airbags and some even have carpet airbags. Taking all of this into account;
the worst danger of all, is that we are trained to be standing here.
But we did avoid the bumper struts, that the vehicle probably does not have.
Again! Is it time to change our training yet?
.
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