The Buffalo Fire Department last week began using 10 new extrication blankets to keep accident victims safe when they are being removed from their vehicles.
This is another layer of protection for the victim who may have already suffered injuries, said Jack Hess, the Buffalo Fire Department’s chief of special operations. “This offers protection for the victim against gas fumes, sparks, and fire.”
Last week six Buffalo firefighters demonstrated how the blanket would be used during a mock extrication performed on a dummy inside a junk car at Skyway Auto Parts on Tifft Street.
The fire-resistant blankets, also known as the McJon Extrication Blanket, are comprised of two layers of No-Mex, the fiber used in the suits worn by NASCAR drivers, with a middle layer of Kevlar, which is used in bulletproof vests.
The blankets, which cost $700 apiece-were donated under a $7,000 grant from the law firm of Cellino and Barnes.
Blanket inventor Jerome S McIntee, a retired Buffalo police officer and volunteer fire chief, said he came across the idea after responding to thousands of accidents. He said typically, those who are trapped are draped with everything from garbage bags to a firefighter’s coat.
“This is the missing link between the victim and the caregiver”, said McIntee, who had been a Buffalo police officer for two decades. “This could give firefighters more time to get the victim out of the vehicle and protect them from heat, jagged metal, broken glass, or a deployed air bag.”
McIntee said the blankets can also be used as a thermal covering, and a “sterile platform” when firefighters and paramedics are working on patients on the pavement.
In St. Pete Beach, Fla., the blankets are used beneath patients who are laying on the hot sand, he said.
Six years after McIntee invented the blanket, McJon is selling their patented product nationwide throughout the United States and Canada.
McIntee said about half the fire departments in Erie County are currently using the blanket.