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EMERGENCY SHORING AND LIFTING TECHNIQUES A Guide to Equipment Handling and Techniques for Use in Emergency Shoring and Lifting Operations
Introduction In the case of a collision, vehicles often come to rest in unusual positions. With the understanding that movement of the vehicle during rescue efforts may lead to further injury of those trapped inside, it becomes very important to be able to rapidly stabilize a vehicle in the position it is found in before extrication rescue efforts can begin on the vehicle.
Shored tanker in under-run situation It is important that we firstly develop a clear understanding of the difference between securing a vehicle and stabilizing a vehicle. Let’s for instance take the example of a car on its side. If we simply tie this vehicle off with some rope this may well secure the vehicle (in that it would not fall over) but it would not be stable. In order to truly stabilize a vehicle we have to create ground up stabilization that will ensure the vehicle will not move due to any of our extrication efforts. Once this has been achieved one can say that the vehicle is stabilized.
A stabilized vehicle is one that will not move as a result of normal extrication rescue procedures applied to it. Some of the procedures covered in this chapter can also be found in the book Holmatro’s Vehicle Extrication Techniques. The focus of this book is however more on stabilization requiring shoring. If you would like to know more about basic stabilization or how to perform extrication after stabilization take a look at Holmatro’s Vehicle Extrication Techniques.
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