| Gladwyne Firefighters were woken up early this morning when our company was dispatched to River Road and Mill Creek Road for a vehicle rescue. Along with Gladwyne Firefighters, Belmont Hills Fire Company and Penn Wynne Fire Company were dispatched as the rescue companies. As Gladwyne Firefighters were getting their protective turn out gear on in the station, the location of the incident was changed to Grays Lane and Mill Creek Road in Haverford. This intersection is in the Merion Fire Company of Ardmore's fire district, thus adding them to the call. Engine 24 arrived on scene shortly after Chief 25 and found a single vehicle down an embankment in a creek with a patient heavily trapped in the vehicle. The crew from Engine 24 set up scene lighting and started assisting the Narberth Ambulance paramedics with patient care and obtaining access to the patient who was heavily trapped in the vehicle. Upon arrival of the rescue companies and Merion Fire Company of Ardmore firefighters joined forces and shuttled equipment from the street level down into the creek utilizing ladders and lowering equipment from street level.
Utilizing rescue tools, firefighters cut the doors off the car, removed the roof, pushed the dashboard off the patients legs, pulled the steering wheel off the patients lap, and removed the drivers seat out from under the patient to gain more room to remove the patient. During this extensive rescue as crews started to fatigue, Chief 25 requested additional rescue personnel from the Bryn Mawr Fire Company to assist at the scene.
Once the patient was removed from the heavily wrecked vehicle, Firefighters assisted the Narberth Paramedics with packaging the patient and extracting the patient from the creek to street level where the patient was then loaded into the ambulance and transported to the Helipad at Lankenau Hospital where PennSTAR Flight was waiting to fly the patient to the Penn Presbyterian Trauma Hospital.
It should be noted that while still being investigated, this accident occurred much earlier in the evening on Monday night and the patient was trapped in the vehicle for several hours waiting for somebody to hear their cries for help. An alert Lower Merion Police Officer while on patrol hear the cries for help and activated the emergency services that ultimately rescued the patient.
Great Job by Lower Merion Police, Narberth Ambulance, Gladwyne Firefighters, Merion Fire Company of Ardmore Firefighters, Penn Wynne Firefighters, Belmont Hills Firefighters, Bryn Mawr Firefighters and the PennSTAR Flight crew that all took part in saving a life this morning! |
