Rescue Data Sheets for Fire Services
The German automotive industry has always devoted the greatest attention to vehicle safety – in this area Germany is the world’s market leader in technology. Over recent years, important safety equipment has been developed and implemented in close co-operation between manufacturers and suppliers. This has helped to considerably improve traffic safety in Germany. Compared to more than 20,000 deaths on German roads in the 1970s, in 2010 less than 3,700 people lost their lives – and the number continues to fall.
However, the life-saving safety features also affect the procedures followed to rescue people from vehicles involved in accidents. When attending an accident, the rescue services use information about items such as airbags, structural reinforcements and the location of batteries, which helps them to rescue injured persons rapidly and safely.
In their rescue guidelines, the OEMs in the VDA offer since a couple of years standardised rescue data sheets as downloads on the Internet for each passenger car model with at least one pyrotechnical device. These sheets are co-ordinated with the German Fire Protection Association (GFPA) and emergency doctors. The emergency services at the scene of an accident can use this technical information to make quick and efficient decisions about the best approach for the rescue, and so the data sheets contribute to further optimisation of the safe rescue of patients and thus to further improvements in road traffic safety.
The recommendations for rescuing injured persons in Germany have been elaborated by the German Fire Protection Association in a set of guidelines (see link to the GFPA).
Legal Disclaimer
a) The contents of these Internet pages are intended exclusively for trained members of the rescue services for the technical rescue of persons from vehicles at the scene of an accident in Germany and may only be used for this purpose.
b) Responsibility for the content of these rescue data sheets and for ensuring that it is up-to-date rests solely with the manufacturers compiling them.
