{"id":11310,"date":"2019-12-18T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/?p=11310"},"modified":"2021-03-31T15:02:19","modified_gmt":"2021-03-31T15:02:19","slug":"what-can-we-learn-from-this-tragedy-veteran-firefighter-breaks-down-what-to-in-a-car-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/2019\/12\/18\/what-can-we-learn-from-this-tragedy-veteran-firefighter-breaks-down-what-to-in-a-car-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"What Can We Learn From This Tragedy? Veteran firefighter breaks down what to in a car fire."},"content":{"rendered":"
\nClick here for the most recent Blog Post from Dennis Curley.<\/a>\n\nHere's a firefighting story. It's a true story, definitely not for the faint of heart. I'm telling it to you so that you have a better grasp on what to do and what not to do if you find yourself at the scene of a car fire:\n\n\n[dfads params='groups=292&limit=1&orderby=random']\n\nI was the driver that day on Engine 3 when the call from dispatch came in, \"Vehicle fire, no occupants, 6th street, north of National Avenue.\"\n\nAs we raced toward the fire, we could see and smell the greasy, black smoke that signifies a serious auto fire from a couple blocks away.\n\nI had to slow the engine down to a crawl as we pulled closer to the scene because panicky people were fleeing across the busy city streets, running away as fast as they could from the burning vehicle.\n\n\"Run for your lives, it's gonna blow,\" screamed a wild-eyed young guy as he sprinted into oncoming traffic.\n\nJake, the senior firefighter on the rig, shook his head and muttered \"Hollywood\" as I swerved the fire engine around the guy and toward the car engulfed in flames -- the crew all knew that in real life cars very rarely explode the way they do in Hollywood movies. We also knew that the Myth of the Exploding Car and the panic this myth could sometimes create problems on the fire scene.\n\nVehicle fires are actually fairly routine business for firefighters. They happen all the time and our crew had gotten good at putting them out. Although the car was fully engulfed in flames, I felt confident we would put this fire out quickly as we laid out a hose line, donned our breathing apparatus, and sprayed a hard stream of water onto the flaming vehicle.\n\nThat's when my heart skipped a beat.\n\nAs soon as the jet of water knocked down the fire enough to see the vehicle, I saw two hands pressed against the driver's side window. They weren't moving, it was almost as if they were glued to the window glass.\n\nA couple of us shouted at the same time, \"Someone's in there, somebody's trapped.<\/em>\"\n\nJake kept a wide spray from the fire hose raining down on the car as I bolted over to the smoldering vehicle. I checked the door handles for heat, and tried to open the door. No go. Through the thick black smoke, I could just make out a woman's head slumped near the window by her hands. I quickly tried the other doors. No go.\n\nRick, the new guy on the crew, grabbed a small window-punch tool from his turnout coat pocket and pressed it hard against the window. No go. It clicked against the glass a couple of times, but did not break the window.\n\nOur Lieutenant ran up with a Halligan tool. He wedged the flat blade of the tool between the car frame and the window and wrenched the tool up. The window disintegrated into blunt pieces of glass the size of pea gravel.\n\nWe could see the victim now. Her hair and clothes were partially burnt off, but her skin was not yet charred. She might have a chance, I thought, as Rick took a pair of trauma shears and quickly cut off her seat belt. The Lieutenant called for a paramedic ambulance and we extricated the woman through the window as quickly and carefully as possible.\n\nJake and the Lieutenant worked on extinguishing the fire while Rick and I got the woman on the ground, doused her with water, and checked her ABC's (airway, breathing, and circulation). No pulse. No breathing. We were starting CPR as the paramedic ambulance pulled up.\n\nThe meds told us later that they worked on her a long time in the ER., but she never got her pulse back. She was a 27-year-old legal secretary who had just gotten married. She died of smoke inhalation. The only slight consolation was that the smoke killed her before the burns did -- a lot less painful way to go.\n\nIt's a tragic story, one of those that I admit still haunt me, but there are some things to learn from it. Let me break down some of the main points you can take away from this:<\/em>\n
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