MILWAUKEE — When it comes to car crashes, the Milwaukee Fire Department (MFD) says the higher the speed, the more likely their crews will need to cut you from the vehicle.
With the increase in reckless driving in the city, fire crews are doing that more often. It is why they practice extricating people from their vehicles on a regular basis.
“We are going to pretend that there is a patient in there, the driver, and you can see that the door just doesn’t open. We are going to have to extricate,” said Battalion Chief Steven Weinkauf of the Milwaukee Fire Department.
Milwaukee fire crews see accidents every day in the city. MFD says over the years, those crashes are happening at higher speeds, making it even harder to get people out of their cars.
“They have been making vehicles smarter, it is made to crumple in certain zones,” said Captain Timothy Leszczynski of the Milwaukee Fire Department.
Although, a crash doesn’t have to happen at excessive speed for someone to be seriously hurt, MFD says a lot of city streets have speed limits of 30 miles-per-hour and they see people die in crashes with drivers going 10 miles over that speed limit.
A 2019 AAA study by Humanities found a driver going 40 miles-per-hour has a 15 percent chance of severe injury or death. At 50 miles-per-hour that risk increases to a 59 percent chance of severe injury or death. At 56 miles-per-hour there is a 79 percent chance of severe injury or death.
In this practice, the fire department is using a vehicle that was in a front-end crash.
“We have a front-end impact, about 45 miles-per-hour,” said Leszczynski.
In this scenario, firefighters are concerned that a victim’s feet would be pinned under the dashboard. It is why fire crews are cutting away the door and part of the car so they can lift the dash about a foot in order to free the victim.
“Essentially we have to take the car away from the person that is trapped inside,” said Leszczynski.
“Our goal is to get people out of the car safely as fast as we can,” said Weinkauf.
Milwaukee firefighters also remind people that when you see them on the scene of a crash, slow down and move over as far as possible. It really can make a difference when they are trying to save a life.
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