School Bus Rescue "Pop Quiz"

[rmoore]

A posting by Forum Moderator Ron Moore

This School Bus Rescue "pop-quiz" is designed to provide fire service, EMS, and rescue personnel with an overview of the challenges that are present when a school bus vehicle is involved in a fire or accident emergency.

Remember, the smallest school bus vehicle carries eight children while the largest bus has a seated passenger capacity of 84 or more.

Take the quiz, discuss your answers with your crew. Official answers will be posted for your review here on February 1st.
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TEST YOUR SCHOOL BUS AWARENESS

1) What is your estimate of the number of school bus vehicles in use each school day in the United States? ________________________

2) What is your estimate of the number of reported school bus accidents that occur each year in the United States? ________________________

3) What is your estimate of the number of school bus occupant fatalities each year in the United States? ________________________

4) What is the most common activity children are involved in when they are fatally injured in school bus transportation? ________________________

5) What is the average number of children involved in a school bus accident in the US? ________________________

6) Considering a brand-new full-size school bus vehicle built to US Department of Transportation specifications this year, list all exit openings for occupants to use in an "emergency" other than the normal front service door.
_____________________________

7) What is the average time required for rescue personnel to cut a 4 foot x 4 foot size hole in the roof of a school bus? ________________________

8) What is the average time required for rescue personnel to remove the front windshield glass from a school bus? ________________________

9) Considering a brand-new full-size 66-passenger school bus, what is your estimate of the time required for fire to spread throughout the entire vehicle if the fire originates inside the bus near the driver's seat area? (Note:No accelerant is used..just ordinary newspaper combustibles) ________________________

10) Medical personnel consider all occupants on a school bus involved in an accident as .............?................ until proven otherwise.


11) A school bus has rolled over onto its passenger side. What opening becomes the new 'front door ' for occupants to utilize as they evacuate the bus? ________________________


12) A seatbelt cutter will function most efficiently if the seatbelt being cut is ....?...... .....?...... before attempting to cut across the belt.


13) Which school bus requires more wood cribbing to stabilize;
a) a bus damaged in a crash, sitting on its' wheels on a level highway surface, or
b) the same bus damaged in a crash, rolled onto its' passenger side on a level highway surface

14) Describe what happened to a former school bus vehicle in Carrollton Kentucky on May 14, 1988. __________________________


15) Describe what happened to a chartered school bus vehicle in Palm Springs, California in July 1991. _________________________

[rmoore]

Here's the answers to the SCHOOL BUS RESCUE 'Pop Quiz'

1) Every year, approximately 440,000 public school buses travel about 4.3 billion miles to transport 23.5 million children each day to and from school and school-related activities.

2) A school bus-related crash is a crash which involves, either directly or indirectly, a school bus-type vehicle, or a vehicle functioning as a school bus, transporting children to or from school or school-related activities. Since 1985 there have been about 426,000 fatal traffic
crashes, an average of 42,600 each year.

3) Since 1985, 1,478 people have died in school bus-related crashes--an average of 134 fatalities per year. Most of the people who lost their lives in those crashes (60 percent) were occupants of other vehicles
involved.

On average, 19 school-age pedestrians are killed by school buses (or vehicles used as school buses) each year, and 9 are killed by other vehicles involved in school bus-related crashes. More school-age pedestrians are killed in the afternoon than in the morning, with 43 percent of the fatalities occurring in crashes between 3:00 and 4:00 PM.

4) Getting 'ON' and 'OFF' the bus. Data and experience show that children are at much greater risk of being killed as a pedestrian in a school bus loading zone than as a passenger on a school bus. The area
surrounding the school bus is commonly referred to as the “Danger Zone” because it is the area where children entering and exiting the school bus are at greatest risk of being hit by a motor vehicle. Over the past 10 years, on average, about three- fourths of school-age children who die in school bus-related crashes each year are pedestrians.

5) 22 patients. As the result of studying school bus crashes over a five-year period, I realized that there was a familiar number of
patients being treated and transported. In my informal study, the number 22 was consistently stated by responders as to their MCI numbers.

6) Potential emergency exits depending upon features available for bus vehicles in your state;
-driver's and passenger's side emergency swing-out windows( typically two per side )
-driver's side emergency exit 'third door'
-passenger's side emergency exit 'fourth door'
-roof escape hatch (two, one forward and one towards rear of bus) rear emergency exit door
extra credit if you listed rubber-mounted front windshield

7) With a crew of five or six well-trained extrication personnel, an unlimited amount of extrication equipment, the typical elapsed time for this evolution in training is 40-45 minutes. I've had some teams fail in this assignment, beaten by the construction of the bus and physically too exhausted to continue.

8) Without even breaking or fracturing the two (or four) panes of glass making up the windshield, a knowledgeable crew should be able to completely remove the windshield glass in 60-90 seconds from start to finish.

9) The environment within the bus becomes fatal to occupants inside within 90 seconds. Typically within three minutes of ignition,
flashover occurs with flames are rolling out the rear door, almost 40 feet away from the point of ignition.

10) "patients"

11) The front windshield opening from A-pillar to A-pillar

12) "Pulled tight" to allow the blade to slice through the webbing

13) a) A bus on its' wheels requires chocking of the wheels plus four box cribs set at four corners of the vehicle. Using either wood or plastic 18" long 2x4s and 4x4s, you can consume a total of over 60
individual blocks for proper vehicle stabilization.

14) Head-on collision between an old school bus (owned and operated at that time by a church group) and a drunk driver in a pickup truck going the wrong way on a divided highway. Crash ruptured bus gasoline tank,
resulting in a fire. 27 bus occupants died of smoke inhalation and burns. No deaths were crash trauma deaths. Largest loss of life ever in the U.S. in a drunk-driver accident.

15) The middle Type -D chartered school bus of a three bus convoy coming down a steep hill lost its' brakes. The bus, loaded with Girl Scouts touring the U.S., ran off the edge of the road, flew off the embankment,
and crashed head-on into a huge boulder. The bus body split off the chassis on impact. The driver and six other girls were killed. Sonny Bono ( of Sonny & Cher fame) was the mayor at that time and responded to the scene.







[Note: This message has been edited by rmoore]