Firefighters Open Doors, Eyes With ‘Jaws’

With sweat dripping down their noses, Ventura County firefighters on Tuesday pried off two doors and the roof of a beat-up Pontiac to show off their extrication skills with a lifesaving tool best known as the Jaws of Life.

“You’ve got what we call a ‘golden hour’ to get to a victim,” said Capt. Brian Dilley of Fire Station No. 35 in Newbury Park. “The jaws help us get to those” trapped inside a vehicle within the crucial 60 minutes.

The station recently acquired its first set of jaws, formally known as hydraulic spreaders, which pry apart pieces of metal using up to 70,000 pounds of pressure per square inch.

Complementing the spreaders, firefighters used the station’s hydraulic shears to bite into steel. They aid in ripping off car roofs and chomping through door hinges when necessary.

County fire spokeswoman Sandi Wells said Station 35 needed the equipment because of its location next to the Ventura Freeway as well as its proximity to the Conejo Grade, where many traffic accidents occur.

“That freeway corridor between Wendy Drive to the bottom of the grade sees a lot of activity,” Wells said.

In two months, the Newbury Park station is expected to receive a state-of-the-art jaws-shears combination tool to replace the older equipment that firefighters are using now, Wells said.

There are currently eight sets of the lifesaving equipment in the county. Two are stationed in Thousand Oaks.

Although the county does not keep statistics on how often the tools are used, Wells said firefighters respond to hundreds of rescue calls each year and always bring the equipment along as a precaution.

“Each rescue has the potential” to need the jaws, Wells said.

At a public demonstration Tuesday, attended by Thousand Oaks City Councilman Andy Fox, who is a fire captain in Los Angeles, two firefighters worked together to pry open a 1981 Pontiac 2000’s door hinges, cut wires, ax glass and roll back the car’s roof.

A third firefighter crawled into the car--a soon-to-be-scrapped vehicle that was donated by Dave’s Towing Co.--to offer words of support and cover the volunteer “victim’s” neck with a plastic blanket as crews smashed windows to get inside.