Extracting a Pearl by the Danbury Fire Department

A person trapped in a modern car during an accident is in trouble, and the Danbury Fire Department trains on how to get them out. It's harder than it used to be.

An older car was pretty much "sawable," but a modern car is built with stronger metals, and while the steel protects the driver and passengers in an accident, a crunched car doesn't open like a can of tuna.

"The side-impact, rear, roof impact standards are always improving," said Tony Leca of the Connecticut Fire Academy, one of two instructors who put every career fire fighter in Danbury through training last week. "New cars are made of high-strength metals."

Leca and his partner from the fire academy, Don Farquar, gave the firefighters a test scenario of a car smashed by a van into a cement barrier. That left all four doors crushed and unable to open. The rear window is gone entirely and the front windshield is cracked. The roof is crushed down and the dashboard is cracked. A  fire hose dressed in a jacket is the driver, and a similar setup is the back-seat passenger.

Firefighters have a couple of powerful tools for opening a car, but the old system of cutting through the steel is harder than it was before. Now the firefighters have to find the weak points. That might involve snipping one joint to allow the firefighters to lift off the entire dashboard. Another option might be snipping off the door hinges as a better choice than cutting through the poll where the hinges attach.

"This is a big thing," said Firefighter Rick Krikorian, who was operating a "ram," which is used to separate metal. "Compared to the old cars. We've done this before, but the metals are all new."

Dell's Auto Wrecking, which is across Plumtrees Road from the , donated a Honda for the test. It wasn't new, but it had enough features for the demonstration to work.

Leca said in the old days, the firefighters would remove the person from the car. Now the firefighters remove the car from the person. Take off the doors, Lift up the dash, raise the roof, open the space for the back window so a firefighter and a back board can both climb into the car and support the patient during the extrication.

"The high strength stuff is interesting," said Fire Fighter Ted Mourges.