Pleasantville MVA 11/16/07

[Guest partyrock]

Pleasantville MVA 11-16-07 Link To Incident Alert: http://emtbravo.net/index.php?showtopic=21630

What the hell happened? 2 hours and 10 minutes to extricate someone from an MVA. No mutual aid for additional equipment or tech rescue or do you guys have all of that equipment? Any photos? 2 hours of extrication, someone had to pop out a camera.

Edited November 23, 2007 by x635
REMOVE PARTIAL IA CUT AND PASTE, ADD LINK TO ENTIRE IA

[Guest]

Dude, are you sure your times are right?

[DCurtis 1]

I wasnt there for that accident, but yeah, those times are right. I have no idea why it took so long, but hopefully somebody else from my dept. will fill you guys in.

[Goose 188]

dude, u sure ur times are right?

Those aren't his times, look at the incident alert and you will see he copied and pasted all the incident information. I'm equally as interested to know what happened.

[DOC22 1]

I wasnt there for that accident, but yeah, those times are right. I have no idea why it took so long, but hopefully somebody else from my dept. will fill you guys in.

If you read the narrative, that wxplains a lot about how involved this extrication was. Looks like Mr Murphy had a bit to do with it in terms of the way the patient was pinned.Sounds like it was one nasty pin job!

[Guest EFFP411]

I wouldn't doubt those times one bit, i have seen some pretty nasty jobs, one or two taking over 2 hours to complete extrication, so you never know

[GAW6 66]

More "Monday Morning Quarterbacking".......... I guess people have yet to learn that you shouldn't criticize a situation that you were not involved in.

Yes, the extrication did take an extremely long time, but it was an extremely difficult situation. The patient was being treated by Mt. Pleasant Medic 1 during the lengthy extrication - the patient remained conscious, alert, and stable.

[INIT915 1,119]

More "Monday Morning Quarterbacking".......... I guess people have yet to learn that you shouldn't criticize a situation that you were not involved in.

Yes, the extrication did take an extremely long time, but it was an extremely difficult situation. The patient was being treated by Mt. Pleasant Medic 1 during the lengthy extrication - the patient remained conscious, alert, and stable.

Yet another instance where people seem legitimately interested in knowing the dynamics of an call with different/interesting characteristics, and someone cries foul with the classic "Monday Morning Quarterbacking" line.

[x635 4,066]

Yet another instance where people seem legitimately interested in knowing the dynamics of an call with different/interesting characteristics, and someone cries foul with the classic "Monday Morning Quarterbacking" line.

Well said, and agreed. It's the people who cry "Monday Morning Quarterbacks" and become defensive, who prevent us from getting all the facts, and cause chiefs, officers, and those on scene to become reluctant to post on this board.

Obviously, this was a very unqiue incident, and I'm sure there are some lessons learned that can be shared.

I updated the original post with a link to the original, entire IA, so that we're not just basing this incident on times. I feel the IA was very detailed, and if you're going to discuss an IA, link to the IA instead of only cut and pasting certain information. DevilDog did an excellent job in describing the job, and I feel he was shorted by the details being omitted on this thread.

Kudos to Devildog for such a descriptive Incident Alert, it is much appreciated. I myself enjoy LEARNING what actually happened on a scene from those that were there......I've actually applied lessons learned from discussion on this forum at work.

PLEASE, LET'S USE THIS FORUM AS A LEARNING TOOL, AND BE RESPECTFUL OF ONE ANOTHER!!!

[IzzyEng4 427]

Come on, people here never had a prolonged extrication before????? Sometimes it can be 5 minutes sometimes it could be hours depending on the accident and situation. Face it, when Murphy hits, its a mess and take a while.

[huzzie59 75]

Sounds like the patient is alive; he wasn't further injured by the extication process; C-spine wasn't compromised. We know it wasn't Pleasantville's first day with a Hurst Tool.

Sounds like level, professional, experienced heads prevailed.

Who here can't say it wouldn't have taken your dept. 4 hours for the job.

If someone can get to the people who actually worked the job, get their imput.

What was their thought process?

What did they do?

And why did they do it?

Edited November 23, 2007 by huzzie59

[PVFD233 68]

Can any Pleasantville member fill us in w/extrication details. Just curious of what kind of pin/job you guys had.

[ONLOCATION 24]

I will not speak on Behalf of P'ville but I was at the Incident and will say that it was an extremely difficult task that was throwen at them. The times are not 100% corect but pretty much around the ballpark....and all of the time wasn't wasted standing around either.....different approachs and tactics were tried......awesome job to them.....I will let one of the Rescue or Engine crew guys explain if they want.....really don;t see it as my place to

[Goose 188]

45 minutes is more along the lines of prolonged extrication. I would say 2 hours is extraordinary in nature. The only time I've come across an extraction of that time-frame is on a fatal and the FD was cutting the body out for the ME. The point is operations of this length are not common nor ordinary so a step by step run down of what was encountered (which was done in the IA) as well as the thought process by FD and EMS personnel can prove valuable for those of us in the field. As of yet we still don't know much.

As far the narrow-minded among us, i would suggest it's you have yet to learn a lesson. We live in an imperfect world. In our line of work, the stakes are exceptionally high for both ourselves but also those we are tasked with protecting. Falling victim to "groupthink" gets people killed, plain and simple. No one is free from QA/QI, that means you too.

Edited November 23, 2007 by Goose

[Oswegowind 17]

More "Monday Morning Quarterbacking".......... I guess people have yet to learn that you shouldn't criticize a situation that you were not involved in.

I did not and still do not see anyone "monday morning quarterbacking". No one was questioning the tactics, just asking what the hell happened.

I have been on or involved in a couple of unusual extrications...including one involving a compactor on Caryl Ave in Yonkers, NY. I am interested to know what this job was, see some pictures, and learn from it so I can help others more effectively in the future. When people have questions it shows they don't feel they know it all and are willing to learn, turning them away is the worse thing that one can do!

[ny10570 745]

I responded in on Eng 91. We were 2nd due and while the medic was treating one patient I began assessing the entrapped patient. Our best guess for extrication time is at 2hrs and 7 minutes. We had a very stable patient and were afforded the luxury of an extended on scene time not seriously compromising the patients safety. Our primary concern was minimizing injury to the entrapped foot.

The patients foot was impressively trapped. The floorboard and fire wall of the car were pushed in pinning his foot to the transmission tunnel and the brake pedal was folder over top of the gas pedal and onto the drivers foot. The tire was actually visible from inside the car. After extrication his shoe was still so stuck we couldn't pull it out.

One problem we had was communication. We spent the first hour + attempting to extricate the patient from the passenger side because we were under the impression that the truck was immovable. It wasn't till we exhausted every option from the passenger side that the truck was looked at again and moved. Once we got to work on the driver's side things progressed much more efficiently.

Another problem was supervision. We didn't have that one person of authority who stood back monitored progress and at regular intervals checked to ensure we were progressing. Too many, myself included, were overcome by tunnel vision and we lost track of time. There have been some informal discussions amongst those that were there about ways to fix this for next time.

The other issue was experience. Depending on your perspective luckily we don't do too many involved extrications anymore. Suddenly in a week we get two. Training is conducted and everyone working was very familiar with the equipment and has plenty of time on training, its just that we never get the chance to practice on wrecked cars. We make efforts to bang them up, but when was the last time you practiced on a car with the front wheel driven into the passenger compartment? After the extrication we looked at and found things to change (like taking the damn tire off to give us more room to work) and other techniques. Hopefully at our next extrication drill we can try a similar scenario.

Any other questions, critiques, or suggestions send 'em along. JT has some photos that will hopefully make their way to the site. He was great, staying for the duration of the call and even going on a coffee run for the guys stuck on scene. I also gotta thank the members of PVAC for their help.

[x129K 1,393]

Thanks for your honesty....... sounds like quite the job.

[Oswegowind 17]

Thank you!

[Guest]

One problem we had was communication.

regardless of situations, lack of communication seems to always be a major issue. Like any problem, understanding the concern is to simply become better.

[huzzie59 75]

Very good critic by NY10570.

I'm sure JT's pictures will help further.

[Guest]

Just two questions:

I used to live on Washington Avenue in Pleasantville...where exactly was the accident. That can be a tough street--depending on where you are you're in about a block of business district, then on one side of the street you'd be heading into retaining walls or trees (uphill) or down a sloping embankment...even the possibility of going as far as Metro North tracks or the Saw Mill. It's about two miles from downtown Pleasantville to the Chappaqua library...did you have mutual aid from Chappaqua?

What make/model of car was it.

Believe me, someone could really wind the car up on Washington--it's the only straight stretch of road around, and it's two miles long.

[ny10570 745]

The accident was A few hundred feet North of Pierce Dr on the Southbound side. It was a small slope down from street level, but there areas much worse. It was all handled in-house. We had more than enough manpower and equipment so we let Chappaqua get some rest. It was a '93 Subaru. Possibly an impreza. He was cooking when he left the roadway. Threaded a needle between a couple of trees and still had some decent momentum by the time he hit the truck.

[helicopper 1,050]

More "Monday Morning Quarterbacking".......... I guess people have yet to learn that you shouldn't criticize a situation that you were not involved in.

Yes, the extrication did take an extremely long time, but it was an extremely difficult situation. The patient was being treated by Mt. Pleasant Medic 1 during the lengthy extrication - the patient remained conscious, alert, and stable.

Why does everyon get so defensive about a question? There is no Monday morning quarterbacking - it was a simple inquiry to determine if the extrication did in fact take two hours. Not an unreasonable question since most take nowhere near that long.

Not one criticism was posted, just requests for more info, pictures, or details on the mechanics of the extrication. Sounds more like people are trying to learn about the incident than criticize it.

Take a deep breath and relax!

[Guest]

It was a '93 Subaru. Possibly an impreza. He was cooking when he left the roadway. Threaded a needle between a couple of trees and still had some decent momentum by the time he hit the truck.

That's about what I figured....

Sounds like fine work by all.

[Guest Devil Dog]

With regard to everything that was said, everyone has a valid point;

2 hour is an lifetime to be upside down in a car.

But as it has been stated, murphys law was abundant. as the pictures will show..

Another problem was supervision. We didn't have that one person of authority who stood back monitored progress and at regular intervals checked to ensure we were progressing.

True, very true.

And now the moment youve all been waiting for;

Unfortunatly i couldnt get any in-action shots, but i know someone that dose

IF the black pickup truck was not positioned the way it was, extraction possibly would have taken less time. but if it had not been parked where it had been the car may have flown into the house, starting a whole new series of problems.

[Guest Devil Dog]

The Drivers was laying on his back, his chest was pinned by the steering wheel; here you can see the cuts made to remove this hazard.

[Guest Devil Dog]

[Guest Devil Dog]

Here are the pictures at approximately 6am when the vehicals where being removed.

The fact that this man and his two passengers are alive is a miracle and that 2 where able to walk away is amazing

And here is the picture that i feel sums up the frustration of the scene:

His shoe is still in the vehicle, in the position that we found him, if you looked at him from this position he would be flat on his back facing parallel to the steering wheel; his right leg perpendicular to you his foot facing toes toward the ground .

AND as you can clearly see, the drivers tire intruding into the passenger compartment. aswell as the fuel and break lines

I hope these pictures bring some understanding to the scene

Edited November 25, 2007 by Devil Dog

[DOC22 1]

Judging by the last picture, they were damn lucky the fuel line or tank didn't rupture and start a fire.

[Guest partyrock]

Thanks for the info ny and devildog. I hope it wasn't too painful all this sharing. How did you guys cut the floor pan? I know unibody can be a nightmare. Any thought to attacking it from the side instead of going through the floor.