The following information should provide you with a basic hows and whys of extricating victims from vehicle accidents.


Occasionally the passengers in the front seat will be trapped under the dash or steering wheel. There are many techniques to alleviate this problem. A common solution is rolling the dash or pulling the steering wheel. This can be done using the ram, jaws, or come-along. In many cases a dash roll will occur after the doors and roof have been removed.

The first step in a dash roll or displacement is to make necessary relief cuts. The picture demonstrates making a relief cut on the hinge side of the front passenger side door. A relief cut needs to be made in the same place on the other side of the vehicle.

Then using a ram and specially made L-bracket the dash is pushed up and away from the passenger seats. Looking at the following two pictures, notice the spread of metal where the relief cut was made.

A good safety precaution is to stabilize the relief cut using wedge cribbing. This may prevent the dash from collapsing back to its original state if the ram slips out of place.

A steering wheel pull involves removing the steering wheel out of the passenger compartment. This is accomplished by hooking a chain around the steering wheel and then another chain to the front frame of the vehicle. In between the chains you can use the jaws or a come-along. In these pictures the jaws are used to do a steering wheel pull.

We would like to acknowledge the Boles Fire Protection District for their contribution of this article.