Hybrid Hazards: The HVFC gets a “crash” course in extrication safety

With gas prices on the rise, fuel-efficient hybrids are more attractive than ever.

For first responders, it’s a game changer.

Working safely around a mangled car always presents a challenge. There’s nothing “textbook” about removing parts of a vehicle around trapped occupants. But at least there was a basic set of rules. Firefighters typically protect the accident scene, put the vehicle in park, disconnect the battery, secure the vehicle with cribbing to prevent movement, and use hydraulic rescue tools (“Jaws of Life”) to spread and cut away parts of the vehicle to gain access to the victim.

Hybrids – which combine an internal combustion engine, battery pack and electric motor – make extrications a bit more complicated.

A standard car battery carries about 13 volts. In a Toyota Prius, Chevy Volt or Nissan Leaf, the battery is in the 150 to 280-volt range. At 330 volts, the Ford Escape Hybrid’s battery pack is the most potent.

“Will it hurt you? Damn right it will,” said Toby Chess, an I-CAR program instructor, training specialist and former salvage yard operator. Chess instructed a hybrid safety seminar on Sept. 13 for more than 200 Connecticut firefighters, police and EMTs at Turnpike Motors in Newington. “If someone cuts or drills into a high-voltage wire, hybrids are capable of delivering a lethal shock … kind of like an electric chair on wheels.”

The major automakers can’t even get on the same page when it comes to color-coding the high-voltage wires. In a Toyota or Ford, they can be orange or yellow. Just to be different, GM went with blue.

Taking precautions with hybrids is absolutely necessary, and with firefighters getting downright surgical under the hood of these vehicles, it absolutely slows down the process. That’s vitally important because of the 15-minute period at the scene of an accident referred to as the “golden window” in which it’s critical to attend to the most seriously injured and get them on the way to emergency treatment.

Firefighters also worry that in the course of a rescue attempt, a hybrid might suddenly lurch ahead.

“Hybrid vehicles like the Prius present unfamiliar challenges when firefighters and medical teams reach the scene of an accident,” said HVFC 2^nd Assistant Chief Bob Norton. “High-voltage wires are the immediate concern, but an electric motor, inadvertently left on, has the power to move the car during a rescue operation.”

Chess said to remember the number 16. That’s how many feet from a Prius that Toyota says its electronic key must be taken to be certain the hybrid power train will not be able to start.

In addition, automakers are using more high-strength steel in car bodies to save on weight and boost gas mileage. The new stuff is much lighter than standard steel but much tougher to shear, bend or tear apart. In order to meet tougher roof-crush standards, support pillars are also stronger, making them harder to snip.

To demonstrate this, Chess asked a member of the U.S. Army attending his seminar to cut through a beam of ultra high-strength steel using a sawzall, a tool found on every rescue apparatus. The young man cut about two inches before giving up.

“What we have achieved in 20 years is the total energy absorption in the front of a car,” Chess said. “It’s not only that the structural components are stronger, the energy from a collision is absorbed so well that more people are walking away from these wrecks.”

That’s a good thing, right? For occupants, yes – until the event of crash and they’re trapped inside. Basically, automakers are in a bind: They want to make rescues easy, but consumers are demanding lighter cars with advanced powertrains that get better fuel economy without sacrificing safety.

So cars are still designed for safety – just not the safety of first responders.

That’s evident with airbags, which seem harmless enough but can cause serious injury to first responders working inside a compromised vehicle. Airbags can be anywhere: along side curtains, in side-impact zones next to seats, at knee level – they’ve even incorporated tiny airbags in seatbelts themselves. In addition to dual frontal airbags, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued new protective rules that require all 2013 model vehicles to be equipped with side airbags. The new rule takes effect this month.

A vehicle’s airbags usually do not all deploy at once – even in the case of a rollover. That sets the stage for them being accidentally deployed. EMTs and paramedics working inside a vehicle, as well as firefighters taking it apart, must be extra vigilant to not be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It takes less than 3 volts to trigger an airbag to blow. There are 3.9 volts in your average cell phone battery. That’s why firefighters are now being trained to remove all electronic accessories inside a vehicle prior to extrication. Other than cell phones, that includes aftermarket car accessories like MP3 docking stations, DVD players, GPS units and iPads,

Airbags are set off by stored gas cylinders inside the frame – often located right in the “cut zone” of a vehicle’s A, B and C beams. That’s where firefighters cut to, for example, remove a roof. These cylinders often have as much as 9,000 lbs. psi stored in them.

“You cut through one of those, you just let a missile go off inside that car,” Chess said.

The big take-away for first responders is to be more cautious when approaching a hybrid vehicle, and pursue more training like the one recently offered by Turnpike Motors.

“The automobile industry is changing,” Chess said. “First responders have to change along with
it.”

More information on the activities of the Haddam Volunteer Fire Co. and ways you can get involved can be found on our website – www.HaddamFire.com.