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Firefighter Highway Safety - Putting Your Life On The Line *New Updated Video*
We've all been on them. Motor Vehicle Accidents on highways or roadways where there is minimal room to pull off the roadway. Why can't people pull over to another lane instead of scaring the daylights out of you because you never know if they are paying attention. After a near miss to me... I asked a California Highway Patrolman why he wouldn't cite someone who narrowly missed me while operating the pumps at the panel. I couldn't have sucked up closer to the panel when a car drove by with an elderly driver. I swear, he never saw me or was cognizant that I was there. Have you had any close calls on the highway?
Trucks are the worse, creating a vacuum as they drive by. I'd like to note here that we were parked as far as we could off the roadway and yet as you can see, there was no way that the apparatus operator could gain access to either the pump panel or get into the cab of the engine...
Trucks are the worse, creating a vacuum as they drive by. I'd like to note here that we were parked as far as we could off the roadway and yet as you can see, there was no way that the apparatus operator could gain access to either the pump panel or get into the cab of the engine...
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Brian Dumser on
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Here in Illinois we have "Scott's Law". Named after Chicago F.D. Lt. Scott Guillen who was killed on a roadway scene by a drunken driver who drove into their scene. The law states that motorists must move over 1 lane where possible or slow down and pass with caution.
Back in 1996, before the law was enacted, I was at a roadway incident and as I walked out from between the apparatus, a vehicle came through the scene and just missed me. They paid for it with a broken side window courtesy of my halligan bar! If I had ben 2 seconds faster, I would have been riding the hood of that car down the road! That's my close call, stay safe!
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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on
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I have so dreamed of doing that. Stay safe on those highways! ms
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Permalink Reply by anne potter on
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Kid you not.. Was on my way back from a transfer in syracuse and I was the nurse in the rig .. we blew a tire and was off the side of the road.. The two Ems people who was with me got out and was on the road side looking at the tire.. They just came back around the rig when a tractor trailor nicked us.. he caught us with his trailor and dragged us down the road.. When we came loose he proceed to pull up the ramp got out the truck as we watched him look at us got back in the truck and got back on 81... The troopers chased this truck down took 4 trooper cars to stop him.. Said he did not speak english and was going for help, He did not realize how hard he hit us..OMG..
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OMG, what an intense story...
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It was a Candian Driver and the border was about 30 miles down the road.. He was taking off for that...The two guys just came from that side they would had beed killed.. I was thrown around in the back.. i did not know big girls could bounce around like that... Until that day... Peeled the ambulance like a tuna can... ... It bent a bar threw it into the road.... But he did not know he hit us that hard..... Have to admit not much scares me that did...
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Permalink Reply by Joe Stoltz on
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We are fortunate in that we have no divided highways in or even close to our district. Our highways are two lane with max speed limit of 55.
Recently we had closed down a section of a county road on account of an accident. Two of our fire police were at one end flagging down traffic; one was almost hit by a driver who blew past the control point. The FP person was wearing a fully compliant reflective vest with traffic flag, and she jumped out of the way just in time.
The driver was pounced on by a sheriff's sergeant, who got writers' cramp that day. Failure to comply and UPM were among the charges,
The moral of the story is that we have to assume that people are going to hit us, and we must plan our approach to scene management accordingly.
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Permalink Reply by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on
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Our fire department has had many close calls over the years.
We respond to a very busy section of interstate for a number of reasons.
Signs, traffic cones, lights, reflective vests on top of reflective turnout gear; yet, SOMEONE'S idiot factor will kick in and do something extremely stupid.
The night the college babe slid into the state trooper's car at one of our scenes will always stand out for me. She dehydrated from crying so much. The trooper, then his sergeant and then the shift commander all got time with her.
The most recent close call was earlier this year and involved black ice. Our chief set a new record in the 100 meter sprint.
TCSS.
Art
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The old "no speekee english" defense!
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believe it or not, Santa Barbara actually does get black ice as well but admittedly, very rarely and in places like bridge roadway surfaces and other isolated areas where it gets and stays cold. we very rarely get snow, but it does occur and no one knows how to deal with snow, so we are guaranteed to run a lot of alarms because of that... I've personally had some close calls and I think we would of actually been hit had we not put out orange reflective traffic cones, six (6) total are carried on all of our rigs to help direct traffic away from the back of the rig. The call that I was on had an older male driver run down three cones until he figured out that there was a fire truck dead ahead and only six more cones to go. If he didn't have the early warning, he would have certainly hit the rear of the engine instead of the first three traffic cones... Hope your having an awesome labor day weekend! your friend, Mike from Santa Barbara
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Permalink Reply by Diamond Chief on
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We have begun a very proactive approach responding to highway incidents. We have put rear reflective chevron striping on all our pumpers, added more traffic cones, flashing batons, and new breakaway safety vests. There is no such thing as a routine call, especially on the roadway! We have less than desirable traffic control support from our law enforcement, so we usually are the ones doing traffic control on both sides of incident, which stretches our already thin personnel.
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Permalink Reply by firechief911 on
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i try to make sure we have another unit between us and traffic . that unit has no one in or around it . so far so good . you cant hardly make em slow down i have tried .
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"you cant hardly make em slow down i have tried."
That's where public awareness comes into play. If we educate the public, most of them will start to pay attention when they approach a scene. (I hope)
I know some states have "move over" laws, my state (Illinois) is one of them. Hopefully soon it will catch on!
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