I never cease to be shocked and appalled at the number of line-of-duty deaths and career-ending, life-altering injuries that occur as a result of first responders (and towing personnel) being struck by vehicles while working at accident scenes.
These horrifying work-related tragedies are happening as we speak on roads, highways, freeways, and streets all across America. Although the odds of being struck are much greater on a frequently traveled, high-speed roadway such as an interstate or a freeway, country roads and two-lane highways are certainly NOT immune from these types of incidents.
Doing Everything We Can
As we say so often in the fire service, “Prevention is key.” There is only so much that we can do to prevent a “D driver” (drunk, distracted, disabled, or dumb) from wiping us out on the scene of a wreck. However, are we really doing all we can to remain safe while working on the roadways of our respective response areas? Even more to the point is the question: Are we adjusting our traffic incident management protocols to account for wet, snowy, icy, and foggy winter road conditions?
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| 1 Winter weather conditions offer us some challenges that bear taking a look at to make sure that we adjust our operations accordingly to compensate for the added dangers that accompany them. (Photos by author.) |
I assume that everyone reading this article adequately and properly positions fire, law enforcement, towing, and even emergency medical services (EMS) vehicles or ambulances as “blockers” between the scene of the incident and the oncoming traffic. Surely the days of chief officers and fire commissioners not wanting to expose fire apparatus to traffic as blockers are long gone. Although it may not be easy, we can always replace trucks, engines, law enforcement vehicles, and chief’s cars. We can never replace YOU or anyone on your crew.
Winter weather conditions offer us some challenges that bear taking a look at (again and again) to make sure that we adjust our operations accordingly to compensate for the added dangers that accompany them. Because not everyone in the country has freeways, and not everyone has country roads, let’s use an interstate highway as our test subject.
Traffic Incident Management
I was one of the original group of instructors who took the federal traffic incident management (TIM) train-the-trainer class in Emmitsburg, Maryland. I share that with you mostly because it dawned on me that after all of the TIM classes I’ve done, there is no actual provision in the class for adjusting operations for winter or inclement weather. I am guilty of “doing it the way we always do it because that’s the way we’ve always done it.” Do you adjust things such as the positioning of your apparatus as blockers to compensate for wet, icy, and snowy roads? Are your traffic control folks aware of the need for changes in their practices in these types of conditions? I personally believe that those who have the most dangerous jobs at a winter accident scene are traffic control personnel-the well-meaning folks (often fire police, volunteers, or bystanders) who risk their lives with safety vests and “stop/slow” signs-and towing personnel.
It seems obvious that a traffic control person has an understanding that motorists approaching an accident on dr