On Saturday, November 9th, the Brooktrails Fire Department was dispatched to an auto verse house in the community of Brooktrails just outside Willits CA. Mutual Aid was requested for Willits/ Little Lake Fire District for their Heavy Rescue.
Upon arrival of the Brooktrails Duty Officer, a vehicle had drove into a attached deck which had caused major intrusion to the passenger compartment cause major head trauma to the patient. The Rescue 42 struts off of the first arriving Brooktrails Engine 5281 were put into service to stabilize the deck, Little Lake Rescue 5430 also had Rescue 42 struts and were place in service to supplement vertical support.
Once the deck was stabilized with the Rescue 42 struts, crews began the process of cutting the beams away from the patient and the patient was extricated and packaged for transport to an awaiting air ambulance and flown to a regional trauma center.
This was the first time that the Brooktrails Fire Department had used the struts on an incident however we have trained with them and have only had them for less than a year. Little Lake FPD has utilized their struts several times for various incidents and the fact we bought the struts not only for the uses and design but in our case our mutual aid partner (Little Lake FPD) uses them as well which make sense for us. Thank you Rescue 42 for producing such a valuable and great product!
Jon K. Noyer
Deputy Chief
Brooktrails Township Fire Department
Click image to enlarge. View all Struts in Action
