Fire Apparatus Operator Jeff Smith is being hailed a hero, a day after the apparatus he was driving hit a tree. According to Fox4KC, police say Smith’s actions avoided a more serious crash.
From Fox4KC.com:
Jeff Smith is in serious but stable condition. Part of his leg had to be amputated after Smith and his crew were hit by a car that police said crossed over the center line on Red Bridge Road.
Smith and four other firefighters were responding to a call and had just pulled out of their station when the accident happened.
Fox4KC’s full story is here.
Smith, a 21-year veteran of the Fire Department, cranked the steering wheel hard to the right, causing the fire truck to hit the approaching Pontiac Grand Prix at an angle instead of head-on, said Police Sgt. Bill Mahoney.
“If he had gone straight, he would have been fine,” Mahoney said. “But he did what he had to do.”
The impact with the tree nearly severed Smith’s leg, but he was “calm and talking to people,” Mahoney said. “No one realized how seriously he was hurt until they got him out of the truck.”
Because the fire truck is taller and heavier, and because the child was wearing a regular seat belt, Mahoney said he believes she would have been killed in a head-on wreck — and perhaps her mother, too.
Police said the Grand Prix driver may have been trying to go around traffic that had stopped to yield to the oncoming pumper. Police arrested her and kept her in jail overnight, but released her Wednesday, pending further investigation.
Previous coverage on FireTruckBlog.com is here
1 Comment
Continuing the Discussion