One of the responsibilities of fire fighters is to rescue injured occupants from crushed vehicles. Such occupants are frequently trapped in vehicles whose structure has been damaged to a devastating extent. However, few studies about the relationship between the original vehicle structure and the rescue procedures have been undertaken. The main reason for this is a lack of details regarding rescue operations.
In this report, rescue cases in which fire fighters rescued injured occupants in a crash using rescue equipment were analyzed statistically. These cases were collected by some fire stations in the area.
Vehicle occupants are often rescued by fire fighters (rescue workers) within five minutes. The rescue time (time lapse from site arrival to rescue of the casualty from the vehicle) required by fire fighters was 20 minutes on average. However, when there were two or more persons to be rescued, the average rescue time exceeded 30 minutes. Rescues involving heavy truck frontal impacts took twice as long as rescues involving passenger car casualties. Moreover, rescue operations in which the colliding vehicle was a heavy truck required more rescue time than passenger car accidents.
Proper casualty rescue from vehicles should be divided into four phases (initial opening, treatment opening, rescue opening, and rescue of the casualty). In these phases, we focused on five tasks (removing windows, vehicle stabilization or pulling the vehicle, door opening using a bar/door opening using hydraulic tools, pillar cutting using hydraulic tools, and pushing away the front end using hydraulic tools). The most frequent task was door opening using hydraulic tools, and next was pushing away the front end using hydraulic tools. Cases involving two tasks required more rescue time. In particular, a frontal impact involving a cab-over vehicle took more time.
In addition, some typical accidents including heavy trucks were reproduced by full crash tests, and the problem of current rescue procedures were investigated by trying these rescue activities. The fire fighters could easily rescue the occupant dummies in a crash test of a car under-ride with a heavy truck rear end. However, a long rescue time occurred if lifting of the rear end of the truck was needed. The operation took over 30 minutes to rescue the truck occupant dummies in a frontal collision. The principal problems were rescue procedures of door-opening and pushing-away the front end using hydraulic tools.
From these results, we should study original rescue procedures of door-opening and pushing-away the front end, considering the structure of heavy trucks. This should be done in cooperation with fire departments. In Europe, some rescue manuals which specialize in heavy trucks are made, and such manuals would be valuable in Japan.
Because the rescue equipment in fire engines is different in Japan and Europe, an original Japanese rescue guide of heavy trucks is necessary based current rescue equipment available in Japan. We believe that the amount of time needed to rescue vehicle occupants injured in traffic accidents can be reduced by improving rescue procedures.