[What Would You Do?] Engine MVA

[EMTbravo 312]

(I picked this question up off another forum. It was asked to the person presenting the question during a promotional examination)

You're first due to a 2 story house fire, reports of 2 trapped. You're second and third due engines are delayed due to just checking back from a call on the other side of town. While enroute, your engine strikes another vehicle. At this point you are less than a mile from the fire. You have not yet checked the occupants of the other vehicle to determine injury. Describe all actions from the start of the accident.

[TRUCK6018 50]

Well, first and foremost, you would have to consider the legal implications of what would happen if you picked up and continued to the original reported alarm. Should you keep responding, you could and probably would be charged with leaving the scene of an accident.

Secondly, considering the MOI of the MVA, you would have to assume the worst given the situation. Along with the legal obligation of any medically trained personel of the engine crew (CFR, EMT or Medic) to stop and offer assistance.

Thirdly, consideration would have to be taken for any local (department) policies regarding MVA's with apparatus.

With all of that said, I would make sure my crew is allright and then radio either dispatch or a chief officer (assuming one was responding to the fire) of the MVA and have PD and EMS respond. Then assess for injuries of the occupants of the other vehicle.

Then determining the outcome of the actions up to this point, treat the current situation and await for PD, etc.

It would be tramatic if there were indeed persons trapped and the worst happened. However, it would be equally tramatic if you continued to the alarm and found of the worst of the other vehicle's occupants.

[mikeinet 37]

From a legal prospective....

If you get in an accident (while responding or not) your apparatus is OUT OF SERVICE... Same laws hold if you are driving a regular viechle... if you leave the scene, it's leaving the scene of an accident which can have legal implications.

From that prospective, there's nothing you can do besides having a chief or somene drive by and pick up the crew (not driver) and have them continue to the scene.

Even though the situation sucks, legally there's nothing that can really be done... This actually happened to someone I know. Department A was paged out for a working structure (unknown entrapment) - Department B was paged out to standby at Dept A's firehouse. (My friend is on Dept - While responding, a truck from Dept A t-boned a car when going through an intersection - was placed out of service and Dept B was redirected to the scene.

[Remember585 815]

(This is a likely scenario for my district, being that we have three engines.) :-k

As the riding Officer, first I would do what an Officer does at every incident - SIZE UP. I would assess for injuries, fluids, patient entrapment, etc. I would then radio in my findings and report my situation, and request the resources I needed.

I would then contact the Chief Officer responding and inform them of the situation, and advise them we are unable to respond. I would make sure the other responding units were aware of the situation and detour as neccessary. If I was the Senior Officer responding, I would inform my next Senior Officer that they will be the IC, and other options need to be considered. (Mutual Aid, adding an engine, using the Tanker as another engine, etc.)

As I stated, treat this incident as you would your routine MVA, size-up and stabilize the situation ASAP.

[mfc2257 464]

This actually happened on a job when I was in college. Engine and Quint nose to tail enroute to working structure fire on a two lane main road (Like Rt. 100 between Yorktown & Somers) Car pulls over for Engine, doesn't see Quint and pulls back into lane and is sideswiped up drivers side. No injuries. Quint continues to call. Thiswas against policy. Asst. Chief was driving with full crew on board. He was suspended for 30days (nothing unfriendly or evil about it... that's just the policy). What should have happened....

Quint should have called fire dispatch and been replaced on the box. After PD arrives they can continue to the call. Without an official witness there is a ton of liability with leaving the scene. There really isn't any room for error here. You've got to stop. You're out of service at that point. If other rigs are approaching ask them to stop and pick up the crew, but the officer and driver need to stay with the rig. Also, a Chief if available to be freed up from the job should divert to the MVA for supervision. If possible a civilian witness should be asked to stay as well.

[BFD1054 1,552]

I was actually involved in a similar situation, except it was in an ambulance. I was on duty with Peekskill VAC one night when we got dispatched to a report of a man down, no medic available. We pulled up to find people pointing at this guy lying on the sidewalk, not moving. PPD had also just arrived w/2 officers. The EMT, Driver and myself started a quick assesment of the patient. After being non-responsive to verbal commands, we attempted sternum-rubs and even used ammonia inhalants, all to no avail. Long story short, we could not figure out this guys deal. We knew that there was no ALS available and our best bet was to get him to the hospital ASAP. We loaded him into the rig and were 10-85 to Hudson Valley Hospital Center, lights and siren acctivated. We approached the intersection of South & Washington streets and our light was red. Our driver looked to the left and cars were stopped for him, he looked to the right and had the same thing, he looked to the left again quickly and proceeded through the intersection. Next thing i knew, we came to an abrupt stop, i heard terrible noises, our EMT(who was standing aiding our patient) flew foward into a cabinet and fell to the floor. I was sitting in the "captains" chair facing the rear and went foward and back, slamming my head. I looked out the window to see a mini-van up on the side-walk with medium damage and our driver jump out of the rig. After assuring our EMT was ok, I called 60-Control on the radio and it went something like this..."Peekskill 75B3 to 60 Control, be advised we have just been involved in an MVA, South and Washington streets, start FD, PD and at least 1 additional ambulance for our original patient." Our EMT continued care on our patient while our driver and myself(CFR at the time) approached the other vehicle. The driver got out and was quite irrate and stated that everyone was ok in his car (after yelling and screaming at us). Luckily, the PPD officers that were on our original call, witnessed the accident. FD, more PD, numerous PVAC units, a 2nd PVAC bus, off-duty medics and Cortlandt VAC responded. We loaded our original patient in a 2nd bus and transported him to HVHC w/out incident. An infant from the 2nd vehicle was transported by Cortlandt VAC for precaution.

***Cause of the accident.......

The driver of the involved vehicle could not understand why cars were stopped at a green light. He became impatient and went over the double-yellow line and passed (2) cars, uphill no less and we t-boned his vehicle. To this day, i cannot understand how he did not hear/see us comming.......ah, if only we had a Federal-Q2b on our bus!!!

Just goes to show how stupid/iggnorant people can be when it comes to emergency vehicles, so be careful!!! It can and does happen, believe me!

I just figured i would share my experience of emergency vehicle involved mva's. Believe me, its not cool or exciting, it sucks and whats worse is you never expect it to happen! You had one emergency on your hands, now you have two and hopefully your crew is not seriously injured because that is a whole different ball-game!!!

BFD1054

[Oswegowind 17]

Thank God that Mason is alright, huh Swankie.