Local firefighters trained in Sea Bright yesterday using extrication tools and methods. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
One car t-boned another. A third car was tumbled on its side. And a fourth was flipped onto its roof.
No injuries reported.
The scene was not, in fact, a gnarly multi-car wreck, but a dummy set-up for firefighters from Rumson, Sea Bright and Sandy Hook to sharpen their vehicle rescue skills.
Sea Bright firefighter Dave Covert uses the jaws of life to get into a Ford Taurus. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)
The junked cars were on display in Sea Bright for about two hours while volunteers used axes, the Jaws of Life and other tools to simulate extrications in a controlled training session put on by Monmouth County Fire Academy instructors.
The fun part the physical training came after about eight hours of classroom sessions going over all the methods and practices of vehicle extrication, said instructor Mauro “Buzz” Baldanza. The cars, donated by Red Bank Recycling, were placed to simulate conditions in which passengers might get stuck.
“Because of the different positions they can end up in, you have to train for all the possible scenarios,” Baldanza said.
The fire academy performs about two or three of these types of training sessions a year throughout the county.
