I just returned from a motor vehicle accident. Two vehicles, a Jeep Cherokee and a Pontiac Grand-Am, were involved. Two people were entrapped, one in each vehicle. Our rescue truck arrived with a driver, an officer, and three crewmen. This call was not in our first due, so other apparatus were already on location handling engine company operations, such as securing the battery and stretching a hoseline, and performing some vehicle rescue operations, such as stabilizing the vehicle. Our unit, on arrival, continued with vehicle stabilization and then went to work on the vehicles. It was at this point that I experienced tunnel vision.
I went to work on the Jeep Cherokee with a hydraulic combination tool. Another firefighter created a purchase point with a halligan tool. I went to work on the door. We had just had a vehicle rescue training night the previous Thursday, so it had been only four days since I drilled using the tool. While working on the door, I reviewed what I learned the week before. I remembered to use short spreads to make the opening wider to get other purchase points. To be honest, I was pretty happy with the way things were going. The door was spreading nicely. I wasn’t pealing any of the outer skin of the door away, and I could see the nader bolt. The door was about to pop.
And then I managed to embarrass myself in front of my company officers and the officers of the first-due department. As they watched, I spread an inch too far. The patient wasn’t covered with a sheet and experienced what happens to a window that hasn’t been punched before working on the door with a hydraulic tool-it exploded. The vehicle’s interior, the patient, and the EMT inside were covered with shards of glass.
I don’t know whether the driver suffered any injuries. She definitely had a scare and will no doubt remember the experience for some time, courtesy of me. The rest of the extrication went fine. The door popped, I blew the hinges, the door went away, and the victim was placed on a gurney for transport to the hospital.
Critique
I’ll be honest here. The drill my company had the other night included a discussion on making sure the window is punched before working on the door. We were told rescuers should do three things if the window has not been popped: (1) Ask EMS if the patient is covered, (2) Ask other rescuers and EMS personnel if they have their eye protection on, and (3) Announce that you are punching the glass.
I was so focused on the door and remembering all the tricks our instructor showed us that I forgot about the window. In the process, I embarrassed myself and my company. More importantly, I endangered the EMS representative in the vehicle and the driver of the vehicle.
Vehicle rescue is a process just like any other fire department activity. Certain things have to happen before other operations can take place. You can’t start cutting the vehicle into pieces if it isn’t stabilized and battery secured. I should not have begun spreading that door until the window glass was not an issue. It doesn’t always have to be punched. If it’s at all possible, roll down the window if it’s not a power window.
I’m embarrassed. What’s more, my initial reaction to this type of incident is, “My officers are never going to let me touch a tool again, and the guys in the other first due certainly aren’t going to be real confident if they see me marching up with a spreader in my hands. I just won’t go to vehicle rescues anymore. I’m a volunteer, I don’t have to go.”
That’s really not accurate, though. We learn from our experiences. I will never ever again forget to make sure the patient is covered, and I will never forget about window removal again. After giving my assistant chief my version of the story, he turned and said, “We learn things every day.”
Unfortunately, this time around that wasn’t a real consolation, since we had just had a discussion about this same topic four nights before. However, he’s right. We learn things every day, even if those lessons come from our own mistakes.
My mistake in this case was not forgetting the window, but becoming fixated on the door. Tunnel vision is tough to overcome. A rescue scene is a flurry of activity, and it’s easy to become fixated on one aspect of what you’re trying to accomplish. Step back, take a look at the situation as a whole, and remember the process involved in what you’re trying to do. And, just as important, don’t let a mistake trap you into losing confidence in what you know you can do.
–Chris Mc Loone
