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What would you do?????????????
Its Saturday afternoon and you get called out for a 2 car P.I. unknown injuries. Its on a very busy highway just over a hill, you get on scene and find no injuries and both cars are still in the roadway. Your the only person there and cars are coming over the hill @ 60 mph and have to either slam on their brakes or go screaming bye you. What do you do? I call for law but their 10 minutes out. Do you have them move their vehicles off to the shoulder of the road? Do you get the people out of the vehicles and to the shoulder of the road and hope no one hits the cars?
Well I did one of these steps and I'll tell you on Friday what all happened. I want to see what your answers are before I tell you the outcome.
You'll be suprised, I'm sure! So check back in on this coming Friday.
Well here is the rest of the story, I ask the 2 drivers to pull their vehicles off to the side of the road, and they did but one of the drivers decide to pull their vehiclesway off the shoulder and go up over the curb and parks on the grass. I ran up and asked him if he lost his brakes, he said no just getting off the roadway. Now we've got our rescue on seen an ambulance and law. The passenger then states she's got a lot of pain in her back, so we KED board her and remove her from her vehicle. Law was not mad that I asked for the vehicles to be moved. My Assistant Chief was mad that we moved the vehicles when a patient was injured. I told him that they were not complaining of any injuries at the time, and I thought it was to everyones best interests to get the vehicles to the side of the roadway. He was fine then, but still advised me of the risks when I do something like that. I agreed with him. I guess I'm writing this so that everyone else can think of this when they are going to move vehicles to the side of the roadway. Also the passenger that we KED boarded was fine later on, Thank God!
Well I did one of these steps and I'll tell you on Friday what all happened. I want to see what your answers are before I tell you the outcome.
You'll be suprised, I'm sure! So check back in on this coming Friday.
Well here is the rest of the story, I ask the 2 drivers to pull their vehicles off to the side of the road, and they did but one of the drivers decide to pull their vehiclesway off the shoulder and go up over the curb and parks on the grass. I ran up and asked him if he lost his brakes, he said no just getting off the roadway. Now we've got our rescue on seen an ambulance and law. The passenger then states she's got a lot of pain in her back, so we KED board her and remove her from her vehicle. Law was not mad that I asked for the vehicles to be moved. My Assistant Chief was mad that we moved the vehicles when a patient was injured. I told him that they were not complaining of any injuries at the time, and I thought it was to everyones best interests to get the vehicles to the side of the roadway. He was fine then, but still advised me of the risks when I do something like that. I agreed with him. I guess I'm writing this so that everyone else can think of this when they are going to move vehicles to the side of the roadway. Also the passenger that we KED boarded was fine later on, Thank God!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Chris "Firewalker" Davis on
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Simple...get the persons and vehicles out of the roadway.
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Permalink Reply by Jason on
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we keep orage spray paint on our rescue for this kinda of thing we will mark the tires of the vel. where they sit then move them out the way so when pd gets there the can still do there thing.
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Permalink Reply by Tim on
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no one is injured, and the cars are drivable, as a person in your position, I would get the owners of the vehicles to move the vehicles off at least to the side of the road if not possibly off the highway, wait for a black & white to arrive.
Tim
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Permalink Reply by LT Lake on
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Law Enforcement will want to look at the scene. It's always a bad idea to move the vehicles, once they are moveed it becomes a he said she said situation. Some injuries may not show symptoms for a couple hours or even the next day. If no injuries tell them to get into the ditch then get your vehicle to the top of the hill and stop traffic. Once you have a few cars stopped tell the driver of the first car not to go until someone tells them its ok. Explain there is an accedent over the hill and let them know you will get them going again as soon as you can and that it might be 10 or 15 minutes. Then get back down to the incident. As soon as enough people show up for traffic control get traffic moving again in both directions. If its a four lane and not a two lane where oncomming traffic is not a problem then still get your car to the top of the hill and park it in the lane of incident this will slow down traffic and get it out of that lane.
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Permalink Reply by Flyinghi72 on
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Your safety comes first...so do what you must to ensure your own safety...I would have the occupants move their own vehicles if that was possible regardless of the presence of the police as you do not want others to hit the cars that are involved already, which could cause more serious injuries.
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Permalink Reply by Oldman on
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Texas State Law mandates that if there are no injuries, and the vehicles are steerable, move the vehicles, (and of course the occupants). It's a life safety issue.
Any good traffic investigator will be able to look at the marks of the roadway and still be able to reconstruct how the incident occurred without the vehicles being in place. We do it all the time here.
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Permalink Reply by Stephen Nicholson on
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Reply by Fireman Ed 2 hours ago
If the cars are movable, move 'em. If not, get the people off the road and get back to the top of the hill to slow traffic.
Ditto
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"Once you have a few cars stopped tell the driver of the first car not to go until someone tells them its ok. Explain there is an accedent over the hill and let them know you will get them going again as soon as you can and that it might be 10 or 15 minutes".
Hey LT, can I come up there? That has got to be heaven. Try that down here and if you don't get run over, you will still get half a peace sign (the bird for the younger people who don't know what a peace sign is) and be called everything but human. The word "wait" isn't even in the dictionary to people around here.
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come on up we still know how to be civil to one another up north here. just make sure you leave your city attitude in the city....lol
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Permalink Reply by Jenny Holderby on
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You are the only person there? Check for injuries. Let everyone else know if there are any and if you have entrapment. Call law enforcement which should have been done @ the time you were alerted. Take pictures if you can. I have a digital camera and a camera on my cell phone. IF the vehicles are driveable, get them to the side of the roadway, and have them stay in their respective vehicles. Get back in your vehicle, turn on your emergency flashers if you don't have a red light & wait for the fire trucks. When your units arrive, make sure folks on the other side of the hill see some type of warning device, flares. . or a big red truck with flashing lights. If there are no injuries, your responsibility is scene safety until law enforcement arrives.
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Permalink Reply by FETC on
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You are all alone? Are you responding in a POV out onto the highway? If so there lies one of the problems! If not and you are paid, not sure why the FD would allow a single person to respond by themselves to the highway. Second being in your scenario, you give us details that explain that you proceeded to the scene and almost became or DID become "can't wait until Friday" part of the accident. I must ask though "What does 2 car P.I. unknown injuries mean? P.I. means the dispatchers have information that someone has personal injury doesn't it?
OK I would start back long before the accident ever occurred and would not allow any POV or single firefighter response out onto the highway. Too dangerous for POV's on a travel throughway at those speeds, too small not enough warning light exposure and a single firefighter response in a FD Vehicle is pretty much useless if you had entrapment or injuries, that is just asking for an line of duty injury...
A single unit cop response would probably stop at the crest of the hill and identify the forthcoming hazards with the car's blue lights and his road flares right? So if you beat the cops there, I would order my chauffer to stop at the top of the hill, in our FIRETRUCK, angle to the left, everyone exitting to the right with all our emergency warning lights on, turn on our move over light stick that is mounted on the back of the apparatus being set to the left (even though it may not be as visable parked in an angle - policy though) we would then set up the DOT cones in compliance with the NHTSA highway regulations for the travel speed and then place the bright orange move over ACCIDENT SCENE AHEAD folding sign at the start of the move over cones behind our apparatus.
Seeing I am the FD OIC would request another fire department vehicle response to travel up beyond us and repeat the same protection zone parking closer to the accident scene so a stray car couldn't move into the closed travel lane after the first fire truck. On the highway, it is already a 3 piece response (pre-planned with an Engine, Rescue, Ambulance) for greater protection. Engine closes the lane, Rescue parks closer for the job and performs the secondary protection closer the scene.
As we walk up to the scene, we would be placing more cones along the closed travel lane until we reached the accident scene... OK your question was what would I do? Oh yea, protect the scene, then the crew would walk up the side of the road well off the breakdown lane and establish patient contact to see if anyone is hurt. Not injured, we would have the ambulance sign them off, and await the PD to take over the road safety, as if you leave and a secondary accident occurrs then you could be liable.
Tell them to move, PD is pissed. Tell them to move and they are really injured - you own the injury and lawsuit. Tell them to move and it becomes a civil lawsuit - you become part of the litigation and $$$, so our priorities should be the same. Life Safety comes first.
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