Vehicle Extrication: Levels I & II: Principles And Practice

I posted about a new Extrication book that hit the market in late 2011. I first noticed the text when Paul Hasenmeier posted a link on Facebook about it. The author contacted me and sent out a review copy that has been a staple reading for the last few months. I have worked on finishing my review of David Sweet’s text Vehicle Extrication: Levels I & II: Principles And Practice for over a month. Once I settle in on an area of the book that I really liked, I would end up reading into the next chapter and wanted to review every chapter. Unfortunately, the information delivered cannot be summed up in a simple book review. David put his heart and soul along with nearly 30 years of fire service experience into the book. Below are some of the highlights you should look for when reading your copy.

Vehicle Extrication, Levels I & II: Principles and Practice can take a beginner firefighter and step by step introduce the core principles behind extrication while exposing advanced operations and techniques. Likewise, even an experienced firefighter can expand their skill set and metal toolbox with all the knowledge contained in this extrication book.

Two unique features of this book are the “Near Miss Reports” and “Voices of Experiences” worked into each chapter. The fire service is very good about making information learned from incidents that run smoothly and even those that try the skills of the responders on scene. The “Voices of Experiences” provide a short insight into an incident that directly relates to the content of the chapter. David used several industry leading contributors to develop to the content. The “Near Miss Reports” help paint a picture of mistakes made on scene and how the we can learn from others sharing their mistakes instead of keeping them private.

The text covers every type of vehicle extrication from late models with high strength steels, heavy commercial, and school buses. In my opinion the text should be named the Encyclopedia of Extrication. Each chapter of the book has “Skill Drills” that has clear pictures the step with very detailed step by step instructions. I doubt that Vehicle Extrication: Levels I & II: Principles And Practice ever makes it to your bookshelf!

You can test drive a whole chapter of the book; Chapter 8: Vehicle Stabilization for free.  You can even download the the sample chapter as a pdf.