Parking Brakes

[1aCe3]

Queston on Parking Brakes... Where are they usually? My conception is that they are usually in the middle or on the bottom left of the dash. Are they usually in one location for SUV's differing from regular cars?

ALWAYS make sure the parking brakes are on at a scene of a MVA. This was a lesson learnt from an experience that made my partner and I look somewhat ridiculous. I was preparing some paperwork on our way to a regular transport last sunday in "the great snowstorm" of NYC... More than 2 feet, crazy. Anyways, this was in the morning when the snow was still incredibly heavy with extremely low visibility. We were traveling at around 25-35 mph on the right side of a 4-lane highway that was on a slight uphill when my partner suddenly said ohh.. shit.. I looked up and a suv driving in front of us did a full 90 degree fishtail to the right and slammed face first into the cement side guarding. Granted they werent traveling fast but there was some loud crunching and the windshield partially popped up. We stopped the bus blocking the two right lanes and went out to take the call. Despite my partner insisting the driver stay still in the car, he quickly opened the door and walked around to the passenger door and exclaimed that he did not want to go to the hospital and we should go away. (At this time the suv was turned off so I didn't have to worry about that...or so I thought) I opened the passenger door and began examining the passenger when suddenly the car started rolling backwards! At this point we were all on the passenger side, and the wife sitting in the car who was already in distress couldn't do anything but sit there in horror. My partner jumped behind the car and pushed as hard as he could (This is a pretty big guy), I grabbed the passenger door and did the same on instinct, I took a quick look behind me as the car rolled backwards, and noticed the oncoming cars in the remaining 2 lanes had stopped (Thankfully, or else I would just grabbed my partner and let the damn thing roll). There was a big smack as the back of the suv hit the other side of the cement median, good thing it didnt roll down into traffic and my partner had plenty of time to get out of the way. (Rolling car that gets exponentially faster=impossible to stop, expecially in snow :shock: ) At that point I grabbed the keys and ran back to the bus to block off the whole highway (Police still not there) b/c it was just getting way to out of control. The other driver's that i had gotten to stop didn't seem to want to wait as I was pulling the bus to the left - it got to the point that my partner had to walk about 5 feet away from our patients to help stop the traffic. Sigh..NYC drivers.. But thats not the worst part, when I finally got the bus into position, the driver of the SUV had hopped back into his car and suddenly sped off. My partner and I just looked at eachother and was like.. wtf. Nothing we could do, we just reported it to dispatch and continued to our original call. People can be strange...you'd think if one had to be an accident they'd be grateful if it happend right in front of an ambulance...

[EMT001]

I agree, they are always located on the center console or at the bottom left of the dash. On a related note, as anyone ever pulled up to a call and got out of the rig without putting it in park first? One time, I pulled up to a house and was concentrating so hard on determining the house number that I got out without putting it in park. Luckily, I caught it right away and jumped back in. Can you say disaster? Similarly, our department uses drivecams, and quite a few interesting incidents have been caught on tape, if you will. I watched one the other day that involved a member of my department getting out of the rig, also having forgot to put it in park, and walking about 10 feet in front of the ambulance, which was now rolling towards him. He turned around and noticed it and ran back in to slam on the brakes. No one was hurt, but the look on his face that was captured by the drivecam was priceless.

[Dustdevil]

Haha, those tapes should be edited into a "greatest hits" collection.

I pulled up next to my sergeant once to talk about something. Got out of my patrol car and walked over to him with something distracting on my mind. About the time I started talking to him, I noticed he was looking past me instead of at me. I'll never forget how calmly he said, "Uh... you better go catch your car." :shock:

[Nate]

I kind of thought the parking brake was common sense, then again I drive a five speed.