Emergency crews from Humboldt were sent north of Lake Lenore on February 24 to help a man trapped in his vehicle after a rollover.
The Humboldt RCMP, Fire Department and Ambulance Service were called to a single-vehicle rollover northwest of Lake Lenore on Grid 777 at 2:11 p.m. on Sunday.
A 45-year-old man had lost control of his 1990 GMC Safari van while travelling northbound on the grid road, and his vehicle rolled into the ditch on the east side of the road.
The van rolled at least once and ended up landing on its driver side.
Nine members of the Humboldt Fire Department (HFD) and employees of Humboldt and District Ambulance Service (HDAS) performed a tricky extrication to get the man out of the vehicle, reported Fire Chief Mike Kwasnica.
"We removed the rear doors (of the van) and the front windshield to gain access to the driver," said Kwasnica.
Removing the rear doors allowed them to get a spineboard into the space, and get the man out safely, Kwasnica indicated.
The new Jaws of Life tools just purchased by the HFD equipment fund were put to use for the first time in this extrication, Kwasnica added, and they were impressed with how the new set of Jaws worked.
There was deep snow - about three feet deep - in the ditch where the van landed, said Kwasnica, and with their conventional set of Jaws, that would have meant hauling a hydraulic pump through the snow, to both ends of the vehicle to cut the doors open and remove the windshield.
With their new cordless set of Jaws, firefighters were able to work on the front and back of the vehicle very quickly, and had the person out in nearly half the time it would have taken with their conventional set, which ties them down to 10 feet from the generator and to using one tool at a time.
The driver of the vehicle, believed to have suffered only minor injuries in the crash, was taken to hospital by HDAS as a precaution.
The investigation into the cause of the crash is continuing.
