IN an effort to demonstrate the damage done to a car involved in a road accident, officers from NSW Fire and Rescue dropped a vehicle 15 metres from a crane.
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The exercise was done in preparation for an emergency services mock-trauma scenario to be played out at Orange hospital next Tuesday.
According to Orange NSW Fire and Rescue station officer Matt Jeffery he wanted the damaged vehicle to look as authentic as possible.
Mr Jeffery asked a Higher School Certificate physics class at James Sheahan Catholic High School to calculate the height of the drop needed to cause the same amount of damage that would happen if the car hit an object while driving at around 60 kilometres an hour.
“We’ll have a patient simulator that bleeds, sweats, breathes and has a pulse, and we’ll have to cut it out of the vehicle working alongside paramedics who will then give it to trauma staff at the hospital,” Mr Jeffery said.
“We needed the car to look as realistic as possible.”
Mr Jeffery said most people would be surprised to see the damage that happened during an accident, even when a car is travelling at the correct speed limit.
“I imagine that most times people involved in a crash like this would end up with reasonably serious injuries,” he said.
Mr Jeffery said staging the crash required a great effort from a number of businesses from the Blayney area including PGR Truck Repairs, who supplied the vehicle, Turnbull and Townsend Towing, who helped move the vehicle, and Blayney Crane Services, who dropped the vehicle.
“Everyone pitched in with relatively late notice,” he said.
