NHRA's Safety Safari > IRL's safety crew. Fiery video inside (1 Viewer)

[.]

Saturday night at Texas motorspeedway, Swiss Indy car driver Simona De Silvestro was in a car fire.
Watch:

[vBTube]ksF02lx25GY[/vBTube]

Her right hand was burned but she said

"My hand is a little bit burned. I couldn't get out quickly enough," she said, managing to smile. "I feel OK and will be ready to go in the next race."

Holy hell, they need to use the right tools for the right job!
The more I watch that vid the more angry I get.
We are fortunate to have the NHRA Safety Safari.

 

[Doug in the woods]

Thank God for the NHRA safety Safari.
I can't believe how S L O W the first emergency truck crew is.
NOTE how fast the second crew moves and they had water or ? before the first crew ever got to spraying. As a mater of fact I don't see the first crew even spraying anything?
This goes to show how good of a job the NHRA safety Safari is.

 

[None]

Hey Paul, how about the rest of the story? Like what was holding her in, and how they all were fighting to get her out with "it" still holding her down.

I would never knock the IRL's (Or CART's) safety crew or compare them to any other. Case in point, Alex Zanardi. Read his book and take note to how they saved that mans life when he had what was about 0% chance of living with the injuries he has had.

That is just one example, just as Somona's wreck is also just one.

 

[.]

When the safety safari rolls, I notice their hoses are up to pressure and more often than not are shooting liquid at the driver before the cars are even stopped sometimes.

What if the driver was knocked out? That takes the restraint device question out of the equation.
Those safety crews need to be given the right tools and right procedural training for cases like these.

 

[vegasnitro]

ESPN.com is reporting the hose failed on the first response vehicle. How the hell does that happen? Good news is Simona only suffered minor burns on one hand and is not expected to miss any seat time.

 

[turbo ken]

They make the helmet fit tight inside the car, plus they have some kind of quick release teather that attaches the helmet to the padding in the car which you have to disconnect thus making it hard to get out of the car quickly. The IRL safety crew should take alook at the NHRA's safety safari's fire extinguishing systems (I think the IRL uses pumps rather than the pressurized tanks the NHRA uses).

 

[Jim]

That was a tough video to watch. That said, nobody can fault the courage of those guys trying to free her. They were deep in the flames trying to get her out of harms way.

GOD! How frustrating....

 

[HEMI6point1]

That entire crew needs to be canned. It seems like they were more interested in not blocking the Honda logos on the trucks than doing the job properly. I'm glad she was not hurt worse.

This is why I appreciate the safety safari being there for the NHRA drivers, they are first class.

 

[Speed1288]

Before people seriously criticize the IRL guys they should read Dr. Olveys book. He was the head of open wheel first response for 30 some years. Awesome book and shows how hard they worked to improve facilities and safety. I'd rank the safety safari only over them. Same with F1, read Sid Watkins book and you'll see how much improvement has been made in the areas of first response and safety

 

[turbo ken]

No one's saying that the IRL's safety team is in the "stone age", but they seriously need to improve on their procedures to a fire situation.

YouTube - AAA Insurance NHRA Midwest Nationals 2010 Crash

 

[jackass]

Robin Miller just said on Speed it was the tracks local personel there first and they froze up ... one of the IRL's main crews were the ones that got her out...

Lucky lady...

Billy

 

[mw6789]

The whole bunch looked confused when they first arrived. Safety Safari is the absolute BEST. Watch some of the old Diamond P video's---lots of times they are there and putting out the fire before the race car stops rolling. Absolutely world class in every way.

 

[corvette racer]

My hearing is not what it used to be, but I'm pretty sure I heard Jan Beekus call them retarded!

 

[murdock]

Talk about a Chinese fire drill....

 

[corvette racer]

So after review, he actually said let's get the flames......retarded. Apologies, but it still looked like a Chinese fire drill. Oops, that is not PC either. Woe is me.

 

[none]

Is this not the Horton Safety team from the old Cart days? those guys were the best,these guys looked like the Keystone cops out there.

 

[Speed1288]

Is this not the Horton Safety team from the old Cart days? those guys were the best,these guys looked like the Keystone cops out there.

I don't think so. When the split happened the main part of the horton team stayed with cart and IRL did their own form of them which from what it seems isn't as good. Remarkable what that team was able to do back in the day.

 

[.]

I watched that live yesterday and I was almost to the point where I couldn't look at the screen anymore because I was afraid of what I was witnessing. Thankfully she only suffered burns to her hand. That was scary to watch.

 

[mw6789]

The guy sitting in for Dave Despain on Windtunnel last night showed the video and made a comment about the total chaos of the "safety crew".

 

[TR]

Robin Miller just said on Speed it was the tracks local personel there first and they froze up ... one of the IRL's main crews were the ones that got her out...

Lucky lady...

Billy

Yes, those guys looked like the keystone cops. There is "no" excuse for that water not being able to come out of that hose. Volunteers or not that is serious business. The driver is lucky. We had a fire at our local track in El Paso and the volunteer fire guys couldn't put it out "gasoline fire". You don't need competent safety fire personal---until you need them!
Rick