to the rescue carl j. haddon

Six or seven years ago, I stood in front of a classroom full of students at FDIC International and spoke about the future of automobiles and how it would affect vehicle rescue practices.

This included such things as vehicles whose computer systems took control of the car in the event of an imminent accident, cars that parked themselves, and autonomous or driverless vehicles. My attendees looked at me like I had three heads and chuckled. So, how do you like me now?

This all started for me in 2007 when a colleague made a statement about how the new Volvo XC90 was made of materials that were so tough none of the rescue tools from that time could conquer it. Although he was correct to an extent, another firefighter and I set out on a mission to prove my colleague wrong, which we did. That was 10 years ago. The 2017 model year version of that same vehicle now contains five times the amount of ultra-high-strength steel as the 2007 release did!

Up to the Task

If you were to ask me if today’s hydraulic rescue tools are five times better or stronger than the new ones we were using in 2007, I’d have to answer no. That said, many manufacturers have made improvements in blade, arm, cutting and spreading force, and mechanical advantage designs. Others have simply added new color schemes, lights, and other nonessential wiz bang creature features. There certainly has been vast improvement in the battery-powered tool lines, as battery technology has improved from when the first manufacturers tried introducing battery-powered tools in the 1980s.

1 At a recent training event, two 2017 crash-tested Volvo XC90 hybrid vehicles. One of these test cars had sustained a frontal offset (corner) 40-mph test, while the other had been subjected to a 45-mph side-impact test. (Photos by author.)

Can the new rescue tools conquer the strength and hardness of the metals used to make that 2007 Volvo XC90 that I refer to above? My personal experience tells me that some of them can and some of them can’t. I will tell you that in the late fall of last year, I taught the full lecture and hands-on version of my FDIC International New Vehicle Extrication class in Wisconsin with two brand new, crash-tested 2017 Volvo XC90 Hybrids—the retail value of these two cars was in excess of $160,000. One of these test cars had sustained a frontal offset (corner) 40-mph test, while the other had been subjected to a 45-mph side-impact test. I share this information simply to offer that these were two of the toughest vehicles on the market, and they had virtually every option available on them. They had also been severely punished during the crash testing, which gave our students real-life scenarios on monster-tough