Fire departments practice with Jaws of Life using modern cars

FERNDALE/CLAWSON — Fire departments in Oakland County recently trained to cut into vehicles to save victims using the Jaws of Life.

During two days Oct. 16-17, the Ferndale Fire Department participated in exercises to help people trapped in vehicles. Ferndale Fire Chief Teresa Robinson said the department deals with a wide range of emergencies and has to be prepared for any of them.

With these Jaws of Life scenarios, firefighters used the rescue equipment to help people trapped in vehicles that had been damaged in crashes.

“We have to be very proficient in these tools and know how to critically think in various situations, because not all of (the vehicles) are the same,” she said. “We have to be confident with our tools and understand all the capabilities so we know how to adapt them to the situation so we can help the people that need our help. And sometimes it’s somebody who’s not hurt but is trapped and we’re going to use the tools to be able to get access to them so they can get out.”

Robinson said the tools can be used to force a car door open, cut the roof off the vehicle and lift the dashboard up if it’s trapping somebody’s legs. She added the training makes use of critical thinking skills and provides experience with the tools.

For these exercises, fire departments use donated vehicles. Ferndale received four vehicles from Lark Logistics LLC, which is a vehicle extrication program through Ford Motor Co.

Robinson said the department can get both old and new cars for the exercises. Getting new vehicles is important because, as technology and designs change, firefighters have to be aware of the different design elements so they know where they can cut through a car.

“We don’t want to cut through an airbag; we don’t want to cut through a high voltage wire; any of those things can be very deadly or dangerous to us or the people inside the car,” she said. “So we have the higher tensile strength steels that they’ve put in cars, older tools were no longer effective on (them). So that (training) allows us to ensure that our tools are still effective and also allows us to ensure firefighters are aware of different design elements, and we identify the different safety features that are placed in cars now so we can still do the job we need to.”

Clawson Fire Chief Troy Engel stated that his department recently participated in one of these exercises as well. He said the practice on new vehicles is important because as cars change, the way firefighters need to approach cutting into them also needs to change.

“You have to be really careful,” he said. “In the old days, you could just take your shears and cut right through an A pillar or B pillar, but now you gotta be real careful because there’s an airbag in here and it hasn’t deployed; you can get hurt because it’ll basically deploy or go off or, for lack of a better term, explode.”

One big difference between cars now and those made decades prior, Engel said, is how they’re structurally built.

“In the ’70s, everything was on a frame. … There’s a body bolted to a frame,” he said. “Now most of the cars are a unibody construction. The body and the frame are one piece, and so that comes with different procedures or different things to be aware of as you’re working on that car.”