April 08--When firefighters pull crash victims out of destroyed cars, they have to know just as much about how the vehicle is built as they do about how to tear it open.
"It's not just how to cut them apart," said Andy Ziemer, a firefighter-paramedic in the Hinsdale Fire Department.
Ziemer, along with firefighters from about 10 other southwestern suburban fire departments, put that knowledge to the test Friday at a truck recycling facility on the South Side, where they trained in using metal-cutting equipment to rescue passengers from car, bus and semitrailer crashes.
Adelman's Truck and Equipment donated old vehicles, including decommissioned schoolbuses, to the fire departments for the two-day training.
The firefighters used wooden beams and metal poles to stabilize "crashed" or overturned buses and cars, metal cutters to remove roofs and doors and acetylene torches to cut through steel, as they might in the event of a construction accident. In the middle of the yard, a semitrailer sat with the roof of its cab removed. A few steps away, the side of a schoolbus had been cut away.
"You learn how to peel the vehicle away (from the person inside)," Ziemer explained. "You're creating space to get someone out."
The firefighters said the training supplemented a state-mandated, 40-hour class firefighters take on auto extrication techniques.
"This type of industry is changing every moment," said Don Newberry, another Hinsdale firefighter.
Newberry said vehicles are being made with heavier metals, and equipment manufacturers have responded with newer metal cutters and different airbags, used for lifting so passengers can be extracted.
"The technology is changing. We're renewing the skills," Newberry said.
Ordinarily, to work with a mangled vehicle a fire department would need to spend hundreds of dollars preparing a donated bus or truck for rescue training, Newberry said. In Adelman's truck yard, firefighters got a rare opportunity for hands-on practice with new equipment and damaged vehicles that they wouldn't normally encounter outside of an emergency.
Aaron Adelman, owner of the truck facility, said the fire departments reached out to his business asking for junk vehicles, especially heavy-duty ones. Adelman opened up his truck yard as well, and said he is interested in allowing more training there in the future.
"If there's a real-life situation, hopefully they're better trained to save lives," Adelman said.
jkuang@chicagotribune.com
