BY KEVIN SHALVEY

(Editor’s note: This is a series of articles detailing Staff Writer Kevin Shalvey’s experiences at the Bedford Citizen’s Fire Academy.)

Cutting through the metal frame of a car is, I found out, much easier than sawing a hole in the windshield. 

You just need to use the right equipment – a hydraulic extrication tool with 3,000 pounds of cutting power.

On Thursday, April 5, at the fourth week of the Bedford Citizens’ Fire Academy, 10 fellow students and I learned about extricating a victim from a car wreck, where a firefighter checks the scene, then further destroy the car by taking it apart.

“Vehicle extrication is actually the removal of the vehicle from around a patient. It’s not taking the patient out of the vehicle, even though that’s the end result,” said Fire Chief Scott Wiggin.

Whether the car is on its side or on its wheels, there’s a technique to get inside to a patient. There are tools to stabilize a flipped car, tools to break glass and other tools to stop leaking gas, including using a golf tee to plug a cut hose.

After our classroom time, we had hands-on training, tearing into a rusty, baby-blue Oldsmobile. We put on our personal protective equipment -- firefighter pants, jackets, helmets and boots -- and trudged out to the car.

First, Nancy and David Larson, Jessica Hartman and Lynne Bernard removed the front passenger-side door.

They used an axe and hallagan to get to the joints, then broke the joints with an hydraulic tool.

The door, crushed by the tool, eased off the car as though it was slowly melting.

To remove the roof of a car, the beams and window have to be cut.  So, I was given a tool with a saw on one end and a pick on the other.

Firefighter Ben Selleck told me to just wind up and take a crack at the bottom center of the windshield.
I gave it a shot. 

Nothing, just marks that looked like spider webs.

“Follow through, like you’re arm’s going to keep going into the window,” Selleck said.

“Just like Little League baseball,” I said.

The third time I got through and then slowly cut my way across the bottom of the windshield. It was tough work and I was pretty proud of myself, until later when I watched Selleck cut through the other side. He did it with ease, like he had been born to do it.

Later, I was handed a hydraulic cutting tool by firefighter Jon Snow. I cut through the car’s “B post,” or the section between the two side windows.

The tool has a knob on one end, and all you do is turn it one way to open and the other way to close.  I hate to use cliches, but cutting through the metal was like cutting through butter.

When Bedford firefighters respond to accidents, they have control over the scene until it’s secured for police, Wiggin said.

“We do, in this community, have a lot of access to automobile accidents,” he said.

In Bedford, there are highways -- Routes 293 and the F.E. Everett Turnpike -- and other major roads such as South River Road and Route 101 with high commuter traffic, he said. That amount of traffic can lead to accidents. On the major and secondary roads throughout town, intersections have changed over the years.

Street lights or stop signs were added at hazardous intersections, Wiggin said.

“Years ago, there were no four-way stop signs. Now there are three or four four-way stop signs, and those are basically a controlling measure to stop accidents from occurring,” he said.

Wiggin also said buckling your seat belt when you get in the car is a good idea.

“The survivability is always so much greater when you’re in a restraint,” he said.

The destruction of the car was, I have to admit, a lot of fun to watch. I was amazed (I realized at one point that my mouth was hanging open) at how easily the tools worked their way through the car’s metal.

But thinking about it now, it worries me; that car wasn’t close to indestructible. If a tool can destroy a car, then an accident can, too. But knowing there are trained firefighters who are experts with this equipment sets my mind at ease. I admit, however, sometimes I don’t wear my seat belt. Other times, I go over the speed limit. I’m sure I’ll do both again, but that night I slowly drove home from class. And, yes, I did wear my seat belt.