Date of Incident:
11/02/2016
People Involved in Providing Assistance to Incident:
- Pat “Cookies” Law – Crew Supervisor/EMT-B
- oeJoe Fonseca – Firefighter
- Celena Petrucci – Paramedic
- Penny Gernes – AEMT
- Mike Gernes – Paramedic/Firefighter
- Ryan Trnka – Firefighter
- Jim Moss – Firefighter
Description of Incident:
On 11/2/2016 at The Strip @ Las Vegas Motor Speedway at 1100 hours a two car crash occurred on the drag strip. At the finish line, one car experienced a mechanical failure that locked up the rear tires and put fluids down on the track. That race car went violently into the concrete retaining wall and bounced off and went into the other lane contacting the other race car in the other lane. Both cars became airborne at that time and rolled and flipped multiple times. The second vehicle came to rest on its wheels against the left retaining wall but the first vehicle, after crashing into the other concrete retaining wall and damaging the wall severely, came to rest upside down on its roof.
The Safety Crew responded to find the driver of the car on its wheels to be alert and ok but when checking the driver of the upside down car found the driver unconscious w/snoring respirations. The crew immediately deployed the AMKUS cutters to cut away the driver’s side door bars to better gain access to the injured driver. During the extrication, the driver regained consciousness and was able to answer some basic assessment questions and state where he was feeling pain.
The Safety Crew transferred the injured driver into a waiting ambulance and he was transported to the local Level 1 trauma center. Examinations and tests revealed multiple internal injuries which are treatable and survivable .