Do you use some kind of breathing protection when cutting glass at traffic incidents?
Cutting glass with reciprocating saws or glass saws cause very small glass particles to circle the air and they are not nice to have in your lungs.
There are several ways to reduce small glass particles, tape, shaving cream, water etc but none work perfect so some kind of protection may be needed.
So do you use masks? If you do, do you use one time filter masks or something that you can use several times? If you use masks that you can use several times, how do you clean them or are they personal?
Our agency has SOP's in place that specify the disposable dust masks must be worn when handling any glass or where movement of glass is likely to occur.
These photos are from a recent competition (iRescue 2010) showing them being used by different agencies....
Check out an article I wrote regarding cutting glass
Ben is correct in the fact there are other ways of getting around cutting windshields in a lot of applications these days
Randy Schmitz
Ummmmm Travis are you frickin kidding me. Wow that is crazy. As an Auto Extricaiton instructor we teach air management while cutting glass (simply take a breath and cut and step away to breath again. This is not always practical. In my curiculum we are now suggesting the use of dust particle masks. I agree with Randy. You typically dont have to remove laminated glass in todays scenarios there are ways of going around it.
but we don't cut windshield glass nearly as much as we did a few years ago.
And that's the answer right there- extrication teams need to work around the glass. Flap to the front, not the rear, avoid full rood removals if possible and other techniques