Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mark Klaene on August 5, 2010 at 6:41pm

I have not used them but I have a comment. If you purchase these then what you are saying is that you are getting into the extrication business. That means formal training,refresher training, required safeties , cribbing, incident management and tool maintenance. From this I say you are not offering "Plan B" instead you will be offering "extrication but with limited tools". Generally I see "Plan B's" as dangerous situations, because training and other crucial equipment are not included.

When I added extrication years ago to my department we started with looking at what our Mutual Aid companies could bring to the scene. They were not 100% inclusive and so we started by adding to fill the gaps. For instance they had big Hurst tools but nothing that could be taken down a 50 ft embankment easily -- so we started with a lighter weight and more portable Holmatro combi-tool. They had big rams we added a small one. Over the years we have added a lot of tools and now run a dedicated rescue truck and in my opinion one of the best in the area.

The bottom line is I believe that with most things you have to commit. You don't have to be able to meet every possible scenario right out of the box. You do need to look at your needs and then find a way to fill them. Can you meet the golden hour requirement relying on the Mutual aid company ? Can you do it with multiple vehicles and trapped patients? And as you point out, what if theirs is not available ? My guess is you can't. Auto accidents that require extrication are often life and death situations unlike every fire or even medical call. So time is critical.

Perhaps these hand tools will meet your needs and if so great but I advise against looking at it as a "Plan B".

One last note: a lot of folks are upgrading their hydraulic tools to the new single line "CORE" technology leaving some really good reconditioned items on the market and good prices through dealers. I picked up a second unit that way and now have a combi-tool and power unit and a cuter and separate power unit so I can either operate on both sides of a car at the same time or 2 cars at once, and I have a built in spare.

Hope this helps

Permalink Reply by Borislav Germanov on August 6, 2010 at 5:11am

Gentlemen,
maybe you can take a look the ner eDRAULIC serie from LUKAS. You can choose between speader, two cutters and a ram. They do not need pump unit &hose reel (=less money, less space&weight), the battery lasts quite long and you can always have a spare battery in the truck.
Holmatro - it depends what kind of dealer they have locally, here you have to wait months for spare parts.
Hope that this helps.

Permalink Reply by Bekks on August 9, 2010 at 6:19pm

Thanks for your comment.

Maybe I should explain a bit more...

For starters, I'm really low on the dept "food chain". The Chief threw the brainstorming to the membership to help come up with a greater number of options (many hands make faster product research!)

I agree that we should have WAY more capability than we do. And I have a personal opinion on the whole "one rescue shared within the county" that is NOT in line with current practice - but who am I to say, so I stay quiet.

Should we have more? YES.
Reality? Not happening any time soon.

We have cribbing, and training and spreaders (manual ones) to help bridge the gap... but we just don't get money for stuff like that. (As far as training goes, we have the ONLY fully qualified training officer around (county wide) on our dept (and he's our Chief) and he is fantastic with training and trying to get us what we need.

What currently happens, is the local dept sends it's equipment truck and a pumper (or mini pumper) for supression. They make the scene safe, crib, de-energize, lay a charged line, and assist EMS as best they can while waiting for the rescue to arrive.

The politicians are comfortable with a mutual aid rescue unit.
The call volume "currently" supports the one shared rescue truck (although neighbouring departments - in a different county - are fundraising for "jaws" at ALL of their stations, one by one).
Being proactive, we TRY to be ready to "go it alone" in the instance of a "worst case" situation.

I personally can't affect policy change... I wish I was in a position to do that.

I was mostly looking for feedback on manual hydraulic and battery operated tools.

I was just providing some background as to why and what they would be used for (and a tiny bit of complaining about the lack of funding).

Think they were looking into used units... but still priced out of range.

Permalink Reply by Nando Canez on August 10, 2010 at 4:58pm

i dont know bout those Holmatro tools your asking about...but i have seen a hi-lift jack used to accomplish the same evolutions most hydraulic spreaders are used in...check into it

Permalink Reply by joe on August 10, 2010 at 9:14pm

We have a power hawk battery powered tool as a option on our rescue truck to augment the Hurst hydraulic tools. The electric tool has worked very well for us as both a primary and secondary tool on some serious accidents.

If your department is short on money maybe you should look into the power hawk.

Permalink Reply by Asst Chief Tim Cook on August 15, 2010 at 8:19pm

How about REPLACING the Porto-power with a NEW one(10T) to start?. They aren't allthat expensive.

Permalink Reply by Bekks on August 17, 2010 at 4:48pm

I saw someone showing the Chief a flyer for a Power Hawk or other battery powered spreader tool...

Thanks for the positive feedback on those... we don't have anyone locally to ask for feedback on those as nobody around here has them.

I don't know what the story was with just replacing the old Porta Power unit...
One problem I saw with it was the lack of stable support for the unit itself... if we do go with that type of unit again, gonna have to put a board or some other platform on the truck to give it a stable base to pump on (muddy ditch bottom just doesn't cut it and our biggest most muscular FF can't do it all free-hand...lol).

I'll pass the info along.

Permalink Reply by Bekks on August 31, 2010 at 9:30pm

Okay, I got the update.

The Chief told me we are going to be replacing our old dead porta-pack with a Hurst HP Combo Plus Manual combination spreader/cutter tool.

It doesn't use hoses (like our old leaky porta-pack) and gives us up to 26,940 lbs of spreading power and up to 45,800 lbs of cutting power.

Comes in at around $5K (cdn$).

I think it's a step in the right direction!

Permalink Reply by lutan1 on September 1, 2010 at 6:59am

I'm all for departments getting these tools- ultimately it's about preservation fo life.

However (there's always a but...) members need to be very clear that these tools do not replace a full rescue truck. Unfortunately I've seen first hand where Brigades with these tools have cencelled the accreddited rescue unti as they felt they could handle the extrication.

This may be the case for some calls, but not all!

I guess where I'm going is that the members need to be educated about a couple of things:
1) Know the limitations of the tools
2) recognise that there's more to extrication that simply one tool(s) and understand options and why they're used
3) Know when to cancel rescue (ie: only when the patient is out of the vehicle)

Permalink Reply by Bekks on September 6, 2010 at 9:33pm

Oh, we know the limitations.

We have this tool as a "worst case" emergency solution.

Our primary response is the county rescue unit.
As I said before, we need a back-up plan in case the county rescue is busy on another call and the mutual aid rescue from the next county is further than the golden hour will allow.

This tool will let us get a start until the full rescue truck arrives on scene or let us actually go it alone (in cases of a relatively uncomplicated rescue - like attacking the nader bolt and voila! patient access!) and only if the primary rescue is not available and the back-up is (on it's way) but too far to wait around for (and as you said, only cancel them after the patient is out).

We are not planning on using it to replace the county or mutual aid resources.... It's an emergency "plan B (or C)" for when the "real" rescue truck is delayed in response.