PEA RIDGE — “Pea Ridge Fire Department, respond to the area of Arkansas Highway 72 for a two-vehicle accident with entrapment in both cars. One car has rolled over and is now resting on its roof. There are a total of six patients.”

Thankfully, that wasn’t really the case at 9 a.m. Saturday; however members of the Pea Ridge Fire Department have had similar calls all too often. Saturday was a training day for calls such as this.

Thanks to Junk Yard Dog, Payless Towing and members of our community who donated cars, firefighters were able to practice on seven cars and SUVs.

The day started with the carsbeing right side up and having slight damage to doors. By the end of the day, the cars were turned on their side and upside down with extensive damage to the doors, trunk and roof. Regardless of how the car is positioned or damaged, the goal remains the same - to make the scene safe, stabilize the vehicle and patients and make an safe opening to get the patients/occupants out of the vehicle without causing further injury.

Captain Brian Johnson, the class instructor, arranged to have two companies that specialize in extrication tools present at the training. The original intention was practicing with different tools/brands and getting different viewpoints, but italso doubled as a trial period for a prospective new extrication vendor and equipment. Currently the Pea Ridge Fire Department has extrication equipment on one fire truck at the main station. The hopes are to put extrication equipment on a fire truck at station two as well.

(Station 2 is on North Arkansas Highway 94 across from Givens Subdivision.)

Holmatro and Res Q Tec representatives were both present during the training and brought an array of tools to use. By the end of the day, tools from both companies and the ones PRFD already own had been used approximately seven hours straight but ran just as smoothly as the first time they were fired up.

News, Pages 1 on 03/17/2010