Safer Cars Making Rescues Riskier

That Could Cost Emergency Responders Precious Time Getting Trapped People Out Of Vehicles

(CBS)  Some safety and design features in the late-model vehicles have a down-side, experts say - they could endanger rescue workers, making it harder for them to get victims out of vehicles at crash sites, and so adding to the time it takes to do that.

"It's really ironic that the cars are getting safer and safer for the passengers and drivers, but for the first-responders, they've created some more obstacles for us," Capt. Brian Davan of the New York Fire Department's Extrication Unit told co-anchor Chris Wragge on The Early Show Saturday.

Occupants are being surrounded by high-strength, low-alloy steel, reinforced steel, or Boron steel. Conventional extrication tools can't cut through them. A primary addition to the NYFD's extrication toolkit is "The Cutter," which can get through the newer, stronger types of steel.

Also, newer vehicles have stronger posts, roofs, doors and windshields complicating extrication, not to mention undeployed airbags, airbag gas generators, hidden batteries, and high-voltage electrical cables in hybrid cars that carry a shock threat. Such cables are normally made bright orange, to alert rescuers.

Unfired air bags, with pressurized gas canisters, pose a potentially fatal danger to responders and victims if they release during a rescue. That's forcing emergency workers to cut a vehicle as high as possible to avoid cutting into the airbags.

Davan and two colleagues demonstrated some of the trickier challenges such situations now pose - and what "New York's Bravest" do to try to get around them.

Opening the hood and disconnecting the cable from the battery

Turning the Vehicle OFF addresses several issues that could complicate extrication. It shuts down the hybrid system, isolates the high voltage current, stops power to the airbag unit, and shuts down the internal combustion engine and fuel pump.

Removal of the doors by cutting the car door hinges
The FDNY uses "The Cutter" for this.

Dashboard Displacement
The dashboard is removed by using both The Cutter and "The Spreader." The possible danger during this procedure is airbag deployment.

Removal of roof by cutting all posts around the roof of the car
Again, The Cutter comes into play here.