By KAREN OWENS
Scenario: You and your partner are just starting a 24-hour shift on Medic 2. While you are checking out the truck, the tones sound and the dispatcher’s voice comes over the loudspeaker: “Engine 2, Medic 2, Medic 3, respond for a motor vehicle accident (MVA) at 4th and Main.” The caller states that a truck is T-boned. You realize that this call may involve extrication. Extrication is defined as “the act of moving a person from one location to another” and is the term most often used to describe the process of prying and tearing apart a car to access a patient.1
New vehicle technology has changed the way that first responders react and function at MVAs. New plastics, new methods of vehicle construction, and safer vehicles have increased the number of victims who are able to “walk away” from MVAs. However, there are still responses where first responders arrive on-scene and find that they must cut the car to access and extricate the patient.
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