Crash course in bus rescue for fire agencies

The scene looked more like a Hollywood horror film than a
training exercise, but fire officials said last Sunday’s staged bus
accident in Geyserville may save lives in the coming years.
The Geyserville Fire Department hosted a training seminar on bus
crashes last weekend, inviting fire departments from Rincon Valley
to Cloverdale to learn how to respond effectively to a tour,
transit or school bus crash. The three-day program was paid for by
a $119,000 grant from the state’s Casino Mitigation Fund.
“In all the years I’ve been in the fire service, nowhere have I
seen or heard of anyone having training on a tour bus,” said
Geyserville Fire Chief Paul Pigoni. “We wanted to give our guys a
sense of confidence that if they come across this scene they’ll
have the knowledge and experience to handle it.”
Firefighters arrived at 9 a.m. Sunday to a gruesome scene. Dead
and injured passengers lay strewn throughout the inside of an
overturned bus, many nursing fake injuries—one boy had lost an arm,
another teenage girl had an ugly wound on her forehead, while
another girl was bloody and unresponsive. Firefighters checked on
each one, pulling some of the less severely injured through a hatch
while cutting a large square doorway with power saws to save the
more seriously injured.
In the days leading up to Sunday’s activities, a group of more
than 40 firefighters met with instructors who explained how buses
are made and taught how safely and quickly help those inside. They
learned how to stabilize a 45-foot, 40,000 pound vehicle, where and
how to make entrance and exit holes and when to ask tow truck
drivers for help.
“Overall, they have a very clear understanding on how buses work
and how they can work with other agencies,” said instructor and
extrication specialist Steven Carpenter.
Fire officials believe learning these techniques could, and
likely will, save lives in the event of a bus accident in the North
County.
Pigoni predicts that departments may need to someday arrive to a
scene of a major bus crash. “We get transit buses, school buses,
and tour buses, both coming to the area or passing by on 101,” he
said. “We’re probably looking at an excess of 50 buses each
day.”
Healdsburg Fire Division Chief Steve Adams also saw the value in
training, especially as a collective with other departments. “If
either one of us has an incident involving a tour bus, we’re all
going to be involved,” he said. “It’s not a matter of if it’s going
to happen, it’s when it’s going to happen.”
To support the event, bus reseller and distributor ABC Companies
sent two representatives from Las Vegas to observe and contribute.
“We were so impressed, we’re going to try and find them a later
model coach in the next 12 to 18 months to continue training,” said
Don Jensen of ABC Companies.
Finding buses is no inexpensive task. The buses used in the
training sold for $100,000 back in 1984, and Geyserville Fire
bought them for $6,000 for the exercise. Newer buses are even more
costly, selling for $500,000 new, according to Jensen.