Roadways are among the most dangerous scene types for law enforcement officers and require increased safety measures from hazardous exposure to minimize death and serious injury.
We regularly share news stories of police officers struck while attending a motor vehicle collision.
Because of the frequency with which emergency personnel, tow truck truck drivers and their vehicles are struck, we need to accept that erecting barricades, parking a couple of blocking vehicles, waving orange flags or setting-up temporary signs is inadequate scene protection. High-visibility apparel looks great, but if the patrol cars, fire truck and flashing lights don’t get a drunk or distracted driver’s attention, then a neon-reflective vest is the equivalent of an invisible cloak.
Roadway is a hazardous materials hot zone
Any time you are working on or near a roadway, you are in the hot zone of a hazardous materials incident. Vehicles, blunt trauma-inflicting machines, hurtle around you under the loose control of undertrained, often impaired and regularly distracted operators. Protect your life, livelihood and family’s future by protecting yourself with time, distance and shielding.
Time: As little as possible
A lethal dose exposure on a roadway can happen in a fraction of a second. Minimize law enforcement officer exposure by clearing the patient to an area of relative or improved safety as quickly as possible.
A police officer shot by a barricaded suspect is not treated in the field of fire — a highly hazardous and unstable environment. Instead, the police officer is evacuated quickly and aggressively to an area of cover or concealment. Start visualizing any roadway incident as just as volatile as a barricaded suspect firing at police officers.
Distance: Get out of the striking zone
Visual warnings — signs, flares, spotters — to drivers are nice, but not enough. Increase the frequency, visual loudness and upstream distance of warning signs from the incident.
It’s even better to get out of the striking zone. Move the vehicle, patients, ambulance and other rescue vehicles off the road as quickly as possible. Load and go to a parking lot, access road or location that is well outside of the striking range of impaired and reckless drivers.
As other responders clear the scene, don’t stand idly at the incident catching up with other officers. Return to the relative safety of your squad as rapidly as possible.
Shielding: Bigger and stronger wall
If personnel are stuck on the road because the patient requires prolonged extrication, build a bigger and stronger wall that is impenetrable by motor vehicles. If the opportunity exists to go around, through or over the wall of blocking vehicles, we can be sure that a determined, distracted or impaired driver will make an attempt to break through the shielding.
Finally, our brains are wired to see what we are expecting to see and poorly wired to see what we are not expecting. If you have ever driven west across South Dakota, you know that there are Wall Drug signs every few miles. Because your brain is expecting Wall Drug signs, you see nearly every sign regardless of its size, distance from the road or message.
Very few drivers are ever overtaken by an emergency vehicle and thus often default to blissful unawareness or fight-or-flight-driven erratic movement. Even fewer drivers are expecting a patrol vehicle, fire apparatus or ambulance to be parked on the centerline. Don’t expect or rely on their impaired or distracted cognitive function to identify and react appropriately to this unexpected and never-before-encountered environmental change.
