Westfield, Indiana — In the fall of 2007, an east coast firefighter overturned a fire engine while en route to a call for smoke inside a residence. The engine was equipped with RollTek, an advanced safety system that department officials say provided protection for the driver in the accident.
The driver lost control of the truck, causing it to slide into the ditch and run into a line of trees, before rolling over on the driver side. The driver sustained cuts to his head and an injury to his leg and was extricated from the vehicle within minutes of the accident. The county chief reports that he is expected to make a full recovery.
Matt Byam, Director of Engineering Services at IMMI, investigated the RollTek deployment. “The driver’s suspension seat dropped down to give him more survivable space, while the pretensioner held him securely in his seat,” he said. “The side airbag deployed to cushion his head and neck… RollTek functioned as intended – it did its job in this accident.”
Byam added that although only one person was traveling in the truck, the department had equipped the truck with RollTek equipment in all of the other seating positions as well. “The truck was equipped with six pretensioners, to keep any riding firefighters securely in their seats. All of those pretensioners deployed. The officer’s side was equipped with an airbag, which also deployed.”
RollTek, a product of LifeGuard Technologies®, combines side airbag protection with advanced seat belt technology to reduce the potential for serious injuries or fatalities in a rollover. For more information on RollTek and other LifeGuard Technologies® products, visit www.lifeguardtechnologies.com.
About LifeGuard Technologies
LifeGuard Technologies is a division of IMMI. For more than four decades IMMI has been bringing safety to people through designing, testing and manufacturing safety restraint systems. IMMI provides hundreds of products for various sectors including the commercial vehicle, power sports, child seating, and school bus industries. The Center for Advanced Product Evaluation (CAPE) at IMMI headquarters in Westfield, Indiana, conducts fire apparatus crash tests, rollover tests and cab integrity tests, as well as offering analysis services to the fire apparatus industry. IMMI is a privately held, international company that tests to U.S., European and Australian standards and is ISO 9001:2000 certified. For more information, visit www.lifeguardtechnologies.com.