January 20, 2009

Inaugural Day Fatal Crash 

Bethesda-Chevy Chase Rescue Squad units responded to a fatal collision with multiple traumas in the early hours of Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009.  At 0532 hours, Rescue Squad 741 and Medic 741 were dispatched with units from the Glen Echo and Cabin John Fire Departments  to the 6000 block of the Clara Barton Parkway for a vehicle collision with reports of one vehicle overturned and persons trapped and ejected. 

First arriving units reported having one Priority 4 patient (a fatality) and four additional patients, all of whom were outside the vehicles.  Heavy damage  to the vehicles  was consistent with the report that the northbound vehicle hit a patch of black ice, crossed a median, went airborne, and sheared off the top of the southbound vehicle.  The fatality was in the southbound vehicle.  The four additional patients had been in the northbound vehicle.

Using a thermal imaging camera, the crew from Rescue Squad 741 searched the wooded surroundings to confirm that there were no other patients.   (During a collision, vehicle occupants—particularly those not wearing seat belts—are sometimes ejected because of the force of the impact.)   The Squad crew’s use of the thermal imaging camera—which is usually employed at a fire scene to locate patients in thick blinding smoke, or to find pockets of fire inside walls—was resourceful, though not unusual.   

The four injured passengers were treated as traumas and transported to area trauma centers.

The B-CC Rescue Squad offers its sincere condolences to the officers and members of the Dale City (Virginia) Fire Department.  The one  person who did not survive this unfortunate collision was a member of their department.  He was commuting to work in support of the Inaugural activities. 

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