Chain reaction crashes pose major challenges to firefighters. Top left (l-r): Kern County Fiure Department Battalion Chief Dennis Monahan and Captain Kirk Krushen (Station 56, Lebec) discuss Rescue Drill with Kenny Freeman of Jim's Towingat the Jim's Towing yard in Lebec. Top right: Gayle McNeil's SUV at crash site. Bottom: Gayle McNeir snaps a shot of rescue workers at actual crash scene January 11.
Gayle McNeir of Frazier Park survived a chain reaction crash of eleven vehicles trapped in a sudden tule fog on Highway 166 last month. As rescue professionals struggled to extricate cars smashed under big rigs and school buses in a training exercise Tuesday, Feb. 12 in Lebec, McNeir told about her own experience with the real thing on January 11.
A speech pathologist, McNeir was on her routine morning commute to a Maricopa school that Friday morning. She took the Interstate 5, then exited toward Maricopa. "The fog got really thick at the 166. I was going between 35 and 45 miles per hour, thinking I should turn around and go home," she said. "Suddenly it was so foggy you couldn’t see a thing."
At that moment, she crashed into a big rig stopped in front of her on the road. It was about 8:15 a.m. Morning commuters behind her had no warning. She had been able to turn her wheel sharply at the last minute, to catch only the rear corner of the truck, then exited her SUV and ran as far away from her car as she could get after the collision, "because I knew there would be more piling behind me." The third car to hit went under the big rig trailer and pinned in the driver.
It was precisely situations such as this that brought Captain Kirk Kushen (Station 56, Lebec) and Ben Mauck, manager of Jim’s Towing, to set up the practice field last week.
Mauck demonstrated how his large new tow truck could have lifted the tractor trailer off of the car beneath the big rig to more quickly extricate the pinned driver.
The joint training exercise drew firefighters from Kern and Los Angeles Counties, Continued from page 1 as well as an AMR ambulance crew which is opening up a station in Gorman next month.
Dawn Moffett of Frazier Park, who works at Jim’s Towing, said the yard had set up three multiple vehicle crash scenarios for the practice day.
Mauck, a tow truck driver for 20 years, said he has seen an increase in ‘car versus semi’ crashes in recent years. He said he wanted to work with the county fire departments, "so they know what our capabilities are and what we can do as a team… we want to incorporate techniques and training with our personnel here to help victims trapped in a car."
McNeir said the best tip she can give about driving in fog is "just don’t." She adds, "I am doing OK. I’ve been to the chiropractor a lot, but I know I am very lucky."
-By Patric Hedlund
This is part of the February 22, 2008 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.
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