I put this one up on FireHouse a number of years ago and there was some absolutely fantastic discussions about how to handle it. Unfortunately they archived their site and it was lost....
So, here it is again!
You're dispatched to a Car vs Truck.
It is reported that 1 is seriously injured, the other is fatal. (Both are trapped)
By way of background, the truck was doing 100km/h, the car failed to give way and was corkscrewed under the B Double (About 90 tonnes) for around 100 metres.
first of all, let me just say that i can't believe that 1 of the 2 people in the car is still alive. i would definitley be worried about all the fluids leaking out of the car (especially gas), so i would have a Rescue Pumper close by. also, what the heck is that ambulance doing so close? you're going to have to find some way to stabilize the truck to lift it off the car. make sure the truck is turned off and in park. you don't want that thing moving unless you make it move. the side of the road doesn't really leave the best surface for us to work with. this would definitely have two ALS units, and at least two, maybe three Rescue companies on this in our area. i don't know how busy the road is, but we would need police/fire police for traffic and crowd control. i don't know how the fatality would be confirmed, but i guess i would call in the coroner too. i have more to say, but i want to see what everyone else thinks.
call in a heavy wrecker or crane even ,we need to remove the trailer, then maybe try and use airbags to lift the tractor, it won't be easy whatevr is done, you could try and sawzall your way through the trunk, but my guess is that there was a very tiny void under the chasis of the truck. It looks like lifting would be your best bet
Lifting bags were attempted, but the whole mess came to rest in a roadside drain with lods of mud. No amount of cribbing, etc could get enough purchase and lift for bags in this case...
so...what else did they try, because i can't really think of anything that wouldn't move the whole wreck. what happened in the first 1.5 hours in terms of attempts made at getting to the patient? because after the patient died it would become a recovery, not a rescue. then you could go about things differently in terms of just clearing everything and getting to the bodies without any of the crew getting injured.
I would definitely have to agree in that a wreck like that it is hard to get everything stabilized considering where it ended. I would also agree with the idea of trying to remove the trailer(s) that way you are just dealing with the cab instead of everything else. All in all it is a hard decision cause of placement of rig and car.
Some food for thought- this is a B Double truck so in total you're probably looking in excess of 90 tonnes in weight (fully loaded) so how would you remove the trailer when the car is under the drive wheels of the prime mover? It's surely be next to impossible to drag the trailers back....
A 100 ton crane would be an awsome resource to have at this incident! A pair of wreckers could pick up the rear trailer and after the brakes and fifth wheel were released they could back the rear trailer away. To do the front trailer would more than likely have to be done by the crane. You could also consider removing the load from the trailers to make things easier. I would want a helicopter onscene simply due to the lenght of extrication and the trauma entry of the live patient. Perhaps removing the driver tires of the tractor might have helped access. Judging by the pics this is an incident that would tax any one's ability to think out side the box!
No need. Block the fifth wheel with a hardwood block then rig and lift the front of the tractor with a heavy wrecker.Process will lift the tractor AND the front of the trailer.MUCH faster to get to scene and aet up than a crane.Total time upon arrival of the heavy tow truck to mission accomplished: LESS than 15 minutes for an experienced operator