“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Lieutenant Michael Wilbur, Fire Department of New York as he began his class, “We are reaching epidemic proportions. We are killing civilians; we are killing firefighters.” And so began “Emergency Vehicle Operations: What We Can Learn from Recent Wrecks.”
This presentation provided a pictorial review of recent Emergency Vehicle accidents and their causative factors. Subjects covered include DWI, Railroad safety, response policies, intersection safety, rural apparatus driving, leadership, and Maintenance.
To provide the anatomy of an accident, pictures were shown of an apparatus rollover accident from the beginning to the end. “As we reviewed the anatomy of a rollover accident, we discussed tactics to consider when the apparatus leaves the roadway on a curve and successful ways in which to recover.” Wilbur considered the class a must for all driver operators, chiefs and company officers, firefighters that are driver operator candidates and firefighters that respond in their personal vehicles.
“How much does good training cost and was it worth it,” Wilbur said, comparing the cost of wrecking a fire apparatus. “How much was this accident?”
