One of the most dangerous situations for anyone involved in a serious motor vehicle accident is entrapment.
According to data from the National Fire Incident Reporting System, from 2021 to 2023, Tallahatchie County fire departments reported 12 instances where trapped occupants of crashed vehicles had to be extricated by local fire rescue units.
The reasons can be many, including injuries that leave victims unable to move, wreckage that has them physically pinned or a door that will not open.
This past week, more than two-dozen local firefighters trained for such scenarios by participating in a 12-hour automobile extrication class taught by Bryan Brown and Kevin Reeves, certified instructors from the Mississippi State Fire Academy.
Tallahatchie County Fire Coordinator Linnie Maples said the course consisted of roughly four hours of classroom instruction at the Tallahatchie County Fire Training Complex and eight hours of hands-on field work spread over two days, March 22-23.
Maples said local auto salvage yard owner Timmy Mitchell donated three junk vehicles for the physical training, which took place at Mitchell’s yard just east of Charleston.
Using specialized hydraulic tools, including spreaders and cutters, trainees cut off doors and roofs of the vehicles and lifted their dashboards. In a crash, a dash sometimes collapses down, pinning the legs of occupants.
Firefighters taking part in the training were from Cascilla, Charleston, Enid, Murphreesboro, Philipp, Rosebloom, Sharkey-Hampton Lake, Spring Hill, Sumner, Teasdale and Tippo fire departments, Maples noted.
The county has extrication equipment stationed in fire rescue vehicles at the Cascilla, Charleston, Paynes, Philipp, Tutwiler and Webb Westside fire departments, he added.
