Minivan Extrication

[bfdmike]

Looking for infromation pertaining to minivan construction, especially locations of sensors, pretensioners, cylinders as well as anything else that should not be cut through, especially in the posts. Also, any war stories that would help in training on these vehicles.

[rmoore]

There are no side impact airbags in the roof of a minivan. There are no airbags in the doors of any minivans. All minivans that have side-impact airbags use seat-mounted systems in the front seats only.

Seatbelt pre-tensioners are common in minivans.<br />They can be at the buckle end of the two front seats or at the spool end. If located at the seatbelt spool, the pretensioner is low along the inside of the B-pillar. Strip the trim before you cut a pillar.

Side airbag crash sensors are typically on the lower B-pillars at the rocker channel or under the front seats. Strip the trim before you cut a pillar.

All minivans use pressurized struts as lifters on their liftgate glass and their hatchbacks. The struts must be dislodged or the tailgate opened before roof pillars are cut. Move 'em or remove 'em before you cut a pillar.

Ron Moore

[lutan1]

We've been to a few van MVA's, with various injuries to occupants and also some interesting problems encountered in terms of the actual rescue.

Obviously the biggest problem is the lack of room once they've been in a MVA. Most common injuries we've encountered has been impalements or the concerns for crush syndrome. Most commonly for us to rescue a victim, we'll dash roll, remove either part or whole of steering wheel. In some cases, we'll perform a steering wheel pull. Now that we have two hydraulic rams, we have been training in cutting the top of both "A" pillars and then doing relief cuts at the base of the "A" then inserting a ram on each side of the dashboard between the "A" and "B" pillars and pushing the whole dashboard ***'y totally forward.

We had an interesting one recently where a whole race horse ended up face first, in the cabin, on top of the driver. (Both deceased) To rescue, we did a roof flap to the rear at the "C" pillar and then craned the horse out. We then performed a dash roll then cut the steering column to remove the deceased.

Have a look at the link below, it is another web site with about 120 photos of some of the accidents we've been to, which includes some vans. (No photos are of deceased persons or fatal accidents- all persons survived those incidents....)

<a href="http://www.techrescue.org/heavy/vehicle-images6.html" target="_blank">Techrescue.org (MVA Rescue Images)</a>