They're sleek, portable and quiet.
That was the description of the Humboldt Fire Department's (HFD) new Jaws of Life, given by Rob Bubnick of PotashCorp Lanigan on February 25.
The new set of cordless Jaws was purchased by the HFD's equipment fund thanks in large part to a donation of $23,000 from PotashCorp Lanigan last December.
Now that the Jaws have arrived at the Humboldt Fire Hall, Bubnick made a special trip to Humboldt to have a look at them.
Bubnick admitted he was expecting tools that looked a little more conventional; that were bigger and bulkier.
Instead, he found a cutter and a spreader - both tools purchased with the funds from PotashCorp - to be quite sleek, smaller than he expected, and no noisier than his cordless drill at home.
There's a lot of power behind those Jaws - the spreaders are said to be able to lift the front of the HFD's new ladder/pumper truck. The cutters can snap the steering column in a vehicle - something their old set of Jaws was not able to do.
But all that power can be handled by just one man, which makes them an extremely important tool to have on hand.
Bubnick got an opportunity to not only lift the tools himself, but to run them a little. He was impressed by how easy they were to operate.
Providing this funding to the HFD is a perfect fit for what PotashCorp likes to do to give back to their communities, Bubnick noted.
"It's another excellent fit... when you think about the well-being of the communities around us and the people who live there," he said.
The HFD put the Jaws to use for the first time in an actual extrication on February 24, when they rescued a man trapped in a van after a single-vehicle rollover on a grid road north of Lake Lenore.
"They worked great," said Fire Chief Mike Kwasnica of the new Jaws, which are run by a hydraulic pump inside each tool, powered by a battery. Their old set of Jaws was run off a separate hydraulic pump, connected to a tool by a 10-foot hose. That hose limited movement, and the pump was extremely loud, making communication at a scene difficult.
There are no such problems with these new Jaws. In Sunday's extrication, they were able to move easily around the vehicle with the Jaws, even through deep snow.
"With the old ones, we would've had to move a pump in three feet of snow," Kwasnica said.
"The new ones worked out really well."
