I have been a CFS ( Country Fire Service ) volunteer in SA for near on 30 years and have spent 100’s of hours driving in dangerous
places, sometimes under much pressure, like when you are amongst a wall of fire, remembering that you are responsible for the truck, equipment, and the lives of all your passengers hanging off the back doing there job too.
Yesterday we were on monitoring and mopup duties, (5.30 am to 8.30 pm) before today’s strong winds, after a lightning strike fire in hilly terrain in the states mid north. About lunch time the quiet radio burst into life with one of those calls you never wont to hear, “ truck has rolled over need urgent assistance”.
These days most of our trucks are 4WD Hino’s, around 8 tonner’s.
We were the first CFS truck to get to the scene, and the women next to me in our truck was also an
ambulance officer so she sprang straight into action followed up by the rest of the crew and some others arriving.
The truck had traversed a steep rocky hillside, and for whatever reason had ended up sideways and away it went, rolled 4 times according to a witness and partway into its 5th roll, slammed into a large tree just behind the cab, throwing the driver out through where the windscreen used to be and landing amongst the large football sized rocks.
That is where he stayed, but we were all glad to hear him speak to us.
The tree saved his life I am sure, as it was another 8 – 10 rolls to the bottom of the
hill over more large rocks and the outcome may have been not so good.
Ironically one of the 2 crew on the back of the truck who jumped to safety without injury, was also an
ambulance officer, who also spent much time with the patient and his ultimate rescue.
The patient was attended to by experts who took great care in determining his state of injury and in the end was removed from the scene by rescue helicopter.
A report last night on his state of health was good.
The truck on the other hand will never see another fire again, the back section, mostly made of fiberglass was absolutely destroyed, and the rest of the truck didn’t know what the word straight meant!
When we arrived on the scene the truck was near to being on its left side held by the tree, but was running quite sweetly at about 1500 rpm and although they tried to turn it off via the key it wasn’t giving up that easy.
Several things were tried but access wasn’t easy from the bottom and then there is the danger thing. Eventually it was stopped via a steel bar working the exhaust break from underneath. It must have run for at least 30 minutes. It was good to hear it shut down as it was only a metre from where the medics were working on the patient
Fire fighting is a very dangerous job, and I guess incidents like this are a good wakeup call for all of us that are involved.
4 W Driving is in a similar category and it all happens so quickly, so please use this as a reminder for when your out and about, it can and does happen.
Cheers Pesty