cutting up a school bus

[cap611]

my dept. has obtained a school bus and we have a outside instructor to put on the class. my question to everyone is have you ever done extrication involving a bus ,if so what tricks or lessons did you learn?and were there any problems you encountered.

[Blaise54]

Cutting up a school bus

Recently took advanced vehicle rescue, which for DE includes school bus, tractor trailer, cars overturned, pancaked etc. As for a school bus, 1st off there tough. We did an evolution with a car under the rear of a school bus. You'll need lots of cribbing for stabilization of the bus and the car. We had box cribbing in front on both side, box cribbing to the frame rails in front of the rear tires for stabilization while lifting, and box cribbing behind the rear wheels to put the air bags on for liftng. Don't forget to stabilze the car too. As far as cuttimg on a bus, AC powered saw-z-all works good with a demolition blade or metal blade. Air chisels are noisy. O cutters are benficial for taking out the window post on the sides as well as opening up the rear up to facilitate making more room to evacuation of victims on back boards. The rub rails on the side of the bus are extremely tough to cut and will add time to the operation when using the saw-z-all. Watch the car-buster series on school bus operations for a starter.
A few days after that the local BLS unit was dispatched for a accident involving a loaded school bus. I responded to assist, found a contactors type ford truck rear ended the bus. Fubared the truck, the bus sustained minor damage to the rear bumper.
Another thing to keep in mind, dealing with the kids on the bus. Trying to gain control of the kids on the bus, and trying to determine whose hurt and whose not beside the obvious.

[Resq14]

Use the search feature

Searching the old topics we've discussed, I came up with these:

http://cms.firehouse.com/forums2/showthread.php?s=&threadid=46387&highlight=school

http://cms.firehouse.com/forums2/showthread.php?s=&threadid=46360&highlight=school

http://cms.firehouse.com/forums2/showthread.php?s=&threadid=42784&highlight=school

http://cms.firehouse.com/forums2/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19569&highlight=school

I'm sure there are other good ones I missed also.

http://www.nfrmag.com/backissues/SeptOct2000/feature3.asp

http://www.nfrmag.com/backissues/NovDec2000/feature3.asp

The above are two good online resources. Of course, Ron's book has great info in it also. (You'll also find Ron's material is used in a lot of these)

http://www.advancedrt.com/articles/rtarticles/schoolbus.html

Here's a good site with lots of good pictures of evolutions:

http://www.bigtreevfc.com/html/bus01.htm

Some more links:

http://www.lcfire.com/bse.html