The "Fourth Door"
More than any other passenger vehicles on the road today, minivans present the widest variety of door designs and lock/latch assemblies for rescue personnel. Front-seat minivan occupants typically enter and exit the vehicle through two standard front doors. These front doors as well as the sliding doors on the newer minivans are now required to have high-strength steel side-door collision beams inside to strengthen the door during impact.

The "fourth door" feature on this Chevy Venture minivan improves access to occupants for EMS personnel. Both sliding doors may be jammed due to the dynamics of the collision.

Until the 1995 model year, all rear-seat passengers entered and exited through only one sliding door on the passenger's side called the "third door." When the 1995 Chrysler Voyager and Plymouth Caravan minivans were introduced, they came equipped with a new sliding "fourth door" on the driver's side. The 1997 Chevy Venture minivan has this fourth-door option as well.

This door has one rated safety lock-and-latch unit and may have additional safety lock-and-latch devices at both the front and back edges. The fourth door uses the same-style lock-and-latch assembly and child door-lock features as the third door on the passenger's side with one exception. There is a linkage running between the gas filler door and the fourth door. If the filler door is open, the fourth door will unlatch but it will not slide open. Opening the fourth door would decapitate the gas tank filler door if it were open also. The minivan styling used by Chrysler also hides the door tracks for both sliding doors. It is these track mechanisms that will bend and twist during a crash, jamming the sliding door shut.

Several manufacturers offer a motorized sliding side door that includes additional mechanisms at both the track mechanism and the lock-and-latch assembly. Respond-ers should preview these features at local minivan dealerships to become familiar with the features and how the power sliding door feature will interfere with jammed door evolutions.

This demonstration of a "virtual" fourth door cut into the side of an old Volkswagen van shows how any three-door minivan can be opened for interior access. The evolution reveals that only relatively lightweight materials need to be removed to make an effective virtual fourth door.

Strong demand for Chrysler's fourth door took the industry by surprise when it went on sale in 1995. Ford's new Windstar minivans are not capable of having a fourth door with their design. To compete with the popular fourth door option, Ford's 1998 Windstar minivan has an "extended" driver's door. The new driver's door is six inches wider (53.4 inches) to allow for easier entry into and exit from the second row of seats. But that easy entry is possible only with the "tip-slide" driver's front seat, which allows the seat to slide well under the steering wheel. The seat is standard on high-trim models and optional on others. EMS personnel can use the tip-slide seat function to quickly gain access to the rear-seat passengers located on the driver's side.

When the minivan has only a third door, an entry opening can be made in the thin sheetmetal sidewall on the driver's side of the van between the left-side B-post and C-post. This is the area exactly opposite the right-hand sliding side door. Removing sheetmetal or plastic body panels provides quick and effective access for rescue work and patient extrication.

The Missing B-Post
With most minivans, when the front door and the sliding door on the same side are opened, a B-post remains. The B-post is a good location to place blocks or step chocks for stabilization of the vehicle. Not all minivans have a B-post between the front-seat and middle- seat passenger doors. The Nissan Sentra minivan actually has two conventional front-hinged doors and two sliding doors, one on each side for rear-seat occupants.

What is different about this vehicle's design, however, is that when the front door and sliding door are both opened, rescuers see that there is no B-post on the vehicle. Without a B-post, there is no way for the front door to use a lock-and-latch assembly along the edge of the door. The lock-and-latch mechanisms on the front hinged door and the sliding side door is located along the top and bottom edges of the door instead of along the sides as with a conventional door.

Hinged Doors
Not all minivans have sliding side doors. The Honda Odyssey minivan is one example of a popular vehicle style that does not use a sliding side door mechanism. Instead, the middle-seat passengers of the Odyssey uses a hinged door that works in the conventional manner.

Jammed Sliding Side Doors
Rescue personnel must learn the specific techniques that open sliding doors when they are jammed. Several tool options and rescue techniques should be practiced in anticipation of the various scenarios that may be encountered. In rescue situations, initial access to occupants trapped inside may be as simple as side- or rear-window glass removal.

This head-on collision jammed both the passenger front door and the sliding side door. Rescue personnel must get the rear edge of the sliding door to pop out before trying to force the entire door toward the rear.

In forcible entry evolutions involving a jammed sliding side door, safety lock-and-latch mechanisms at the front and rear edges of the door must be free at the same time before the door will open. Opening a jammed side door also requires rescue personnel to realize that the first action a sliding side door does as the handle is operated normally is to pop or move out, away from the body of the van. As the door pops out slightly, it then begins to move toward the rear of the van. The door must then slide along the body of the van, using two or more swivel arms of heavy cast white metal construction and following three tracks in the body of the van. The door will not move rearward if the track in the headliner area, the track along the center of the van or the channel along the bottom floorpan area is damaged in any way. Crashes typically warp or crush this track system, rendering the sliding door inoperable.

The procedure for opening a minivan sliding side door begins with a door size-up. Rescuers should try both the inside and the outside door handle mechanisms and make sure the door is unlocked before prying it open. Automatic locking of doors is a common vehicle feature.

After physically trying both outside and inside door handles and the inside lock button, the patient and inside medic should be protected and glass removed from the jammed door.

To force open the sliding door, rescuers should first set up a purchase point and then force the rear edge of the sliding door first. The goal is to move the rear edge of the sliding door outward beyond the side of the minivan. Next, prying equipment should be used to attack the front edge of the door at its lock-and-latch assembly. Prying along the front edge moves the sliding door rearward along its track mechanism.

With a typical jammed side door found at a minivan accident, rescuers should consider cutting or disconnecting the pivot or slide arms to totally remove the door from the minivan.

An alternate opening to gain access into the interior of the minivan may also be made by totally removing the roof. This evolution opens the vehicle up to access all possible occupants inside.