Thirty meters down for extrication training
Volvo which is often considered the father of many vehicle safety technologies and goes to extreme lengths not just to develop the latter technology but also to allow extrication specialists an opportunity to hone their life-saving skills on crashed cars.
Volvo Cars recently took equally extreme measures. For the first time, it dropped several new Volvos multiple times from a crane, from a height of 30 metres.
This simulated damage found in many high-speed single-car accidents inclusive of severe T-bone scenarios.
“Extrication specialists often talk about the golden hour: they need to release and get a patient to the hospital within one hour after the accident has happened.
“We have been working closely together with the Swedish rescue services for many years,” says Håkan Gustafson, a senior investigator with the Volvo Cars Traffic Accident Research Team.
“That is because we have the same goal: to have safer roads for all. We hope no one ever needs to experience the most severe accidents, but not all accidents can be avoided. So it is vital there are methods to help save lives when the most severe accidents do happen.”
The findings from these crashes and exercise will be released in a report and be made available to all rescue workers to study.
Using old cars, “some decades-old”, from scrapyards for such extrication exercise is not as efficient as when modern, but crashed cars are used.
“There is a vast difference in both manufacturing and the materials being used now compared to yesteryear.
“Normally we only crash cars in the laboratory, but this was the first time we dropped them from a crane,” says Gustafson.
“We knew we would see extreme deformations after the test, and we did this to give the rescue team a real challenge to work with.”
A total of ten Volvos, of different models, were dropped from the crane several times.
Source: MotorPress
