Project Sudden Impact 2008
65 Miles per Hour crash simulation.
Please drive safely.
HFAS took part in Project Sudden Impact at Holmdel High School May 28th. This year Project Sudden Impact depicts the aftermath of a two car collision, where one driver is arrested for DWI, two people are seriously injured and one teenager killed. The exercise uses student actors as the cars’ occupants in the hope of making the potential tragedy of the event more meaningful to the audience of students. Sudden Impact is all about the consequences of drinking and driving.
The exercise began with the toneout advising emergency response personnel of a reported car accident. Police, Holmdel First Aid and Holmdel Fire and Rescue Co 2 respond.
The driver of the first car is taken into police custody after failing a sobriety test while his passenger, who was not wearing a seat belt, is sprawled dead across the car’s hood. HFAS members attend to the passenger of the second vehicle who is already outside of the vehicle, dazed and confused with an obvious head wound. This patient is prepared for transport to the hospital by all the standard C-spine immobilization precautions for a standing self-extricated patient of neck collar and a standing take down on a back board. The backboaded patient is then loaded onto the cot and driven off. In the rig, the patient would be given a detailed trauma assessment by attended EMTs prior to arrival at the hospital.
The driver of the second car is surrounded by crushed metal and entrapped by the damaged door. Members of HFAS get ready with collar, backboard and straps while HFRC2 work on freeing the driver from the car by popping the door latching system and a partial roof flap. Once the access has been achieved, the patient is removed via a rapid extrication maneuver and placed directly on the backboard. (For demonstration purposes, an extrication dummy was used.) This patient is then loaded into a second ambulance.
After the scenario is played out, the students received graphic examples of front end damage sustained by cars in crashes as different speeds as four cars were dropped from varying heights.
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