Reading that the driver survived however does reinforce greatly the reasons for wearing the correct race wear and the outright performance of modern clothing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAgFK5M2PRM
Bartocci's Lamborghini Gallardo LP 560-4 race car goes out of control and slams into the wall at the track in Brno, Czech Republic during the
Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo, which is the world's fastest one-make series. It's almost immediately engulfed and the driver struggles
to escape the flaming wreckage. Instead of freeing the driver two track safety workers try to put the fire out — mostly by spraying the pavement with
semi-functioning extinguishers.
No one seems to focus on actually removing the driver and a safety truck in the background nearly backs over someone. You also see another official
trying to put out the fire from the grandstand before someone who knows what they're doing grabs it out of the guy's hands.
The driver's not freed until a minute later when one of his co-drivers and crewmembers eventually yank him from the melting car after running
there from the pits. Numerous other track personal stand around as this happens, seemingly ambivalent to the fact there's a driver in there.
Perhaps it's normal safety procedures at this track to have the two guys not in safety gear to rescue the driver, but it doesn't seem
right.
The driver is reportedly awake and off a respirator with broken ribs, a broken leg and second-degree burns over 40% of his body.
arent they left hand drive?
[Edited on 26/5/10 by richardh]
Thank god they managed to stop the track surface from burning. That stuff is hard to replace you know, you can't just lay a new surface on
top.
I hope some people got a serious kick up the ass for their actions after that.
quote:
Originally posted by richardh
that's bloody terrible
what a bunch of clowns.
i hope they seriously review fire training and preservation of life rather than a limp of metal which is what they appear to be trying to save.
driver rescue aside, it truely shows how completely inefective two fire extinguishers are at putting out a fire of a size possible in motorsport.
Horrible to watch
Reading that the driver survived however does reinforce greatly the reasons for wearing the correct race wear and the outright performance of modern
clothing.
I could see potential for that happening almost anywhere in the world including here.
That was just a bunch of marshalls doing their best in an extreme situation. Marshalls are not professionals and are usually volunteers so give them a
break I say.
OMG!!!
It reminds me of the horror of that crash at Fuji were the drivers face melted off, and the marshals did nothing!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOGtUMCB0IY&feature=related
quote:
Originally posted by mookaloid
I could see potential for that happening almost anywhere in the world including here.
That was just a bunch of marshalls doing their best in an extreme situation. Marshalls are not professionals and are usually volunteers so give them a break I say.
poor bloke
Thats terrible! Good on those people that saved him in the end!
I can only go on my personal experience, and after having watched the marshalls at that track last year (my mate and i rocked up to watch moto-gp) the
marashals were very competant and proessional in every way over the whole weekend.
not sure if moto-gp carts about their own marshalls, but every marshal we spoke to on the weekend was Czech, so maybe this incident was a
"one-off" of all the wrong things occurring at the wrong time so to speak
I know the marshals do their best and they arent paid and supply there own gear but why. If the track get to use free labour at least pay to kit them up properly and train them!
I guess there will be some Firemen on soon to provide meaningful comment, but my thoughts (FWTW) are that the guys blasting the track are trying to
drive the fire path away from the potential rescue point (drivers door). The second they stop doing this, the area will just ignite again making any
rescue impossible.
Easy to pass damning comment when you're not there feeling the heat and have no idea how a petrol fed fire behaves.
quote:
Originally posted by scootz
I guess there will be some Firemen on soon to provide meaningful comment, but my thoughts (FWTW) are that the guys blasting the track are trying to drive the fire path away from the potential rescue point (drivers door). The second they stop doing this, the area will just ignite again making any rescue impossible.
Easy to pass damning comment when you're not there feeling the heat and have no idea how a petrol fed fire behaves.
I've been that guy standing at the side with a couple of fire extinguishers many times. To be fair, I've only done it at the hills, never at
a race meeting.
You have a foam filled and a powder filled extinguisher, a brush and shovel for sweeping up after an off at your corner and maybe a bucket of cement
too if you're lucky. Other than that, it's some bright orange overalls, a ticket for your luch and thanks for coming.
At all the ones I've done, without exception, it's always been a case of hoping that enough people turn up on the day.
It's not unheard of for a call to go across the PA in the paddock asking any hangers on to get suited up for some marshalling or the meeting
won't go ahead.
Other times, there are too many marshalls, but that is highly unsual.
You'll have noticed that I haven't mentioned fire extinguisher training here.
That's because there hasn't been any.
I'm led to believe that the circuits are entirely different in this respect.
You do it because it's drummed into us all that without the marshalls there is no motorsport, and that's 100% true.
I also know that at my local hill the first people to be thanked at prizegiving are the marshalls. They're never there though, they've had
enough and buggered off long before that point.
By that point you've had enough.
You've been on station all day, possibly on your own, with only some radio chatter for company. Lunch time is barely long enough to go and get
fed far less check out the paddock and speak to people.
I'll be taking a year off from being an orange suited hero this year.
Regards the boys in that clip. They're doing their best for a sport they love as much as we do. Probably more.
More disappointing is that the onboard fire system did sod all. It should have discharged into both the car and the engine bay, but if the driver was
out for the count, it's not going to activate itself.
quote:
Originally posted by mangogrooveworkshop
quote:
I recall a f1 driver lost his life at Kyalami after he collected a marshall with a fire extinguiser running across the track.
Tom Pryce, driving for Shadow, in 1978 if memory serves. On one of the fastest parts of the track he crested a rise slightly behind and to the right of another driver, to find a marshall legging it accross the circuit with an extinguisher. The marshall was killed by the impact, Tom Pryce was decapitated.
Ian-B - 26/5/10 at 06:34 PMI am not sure that post and some of the responses are entirely justified.
The video is from the wrong side of the incident to be able to make a fair assessment of whether the actions of the marshalls were correct or not. They would not have known whether a rapid extrication would work (car had a very heavy front impact so there is significant risk of the driver being physically trapped), attempting and extrication would of meant the marshall would be unable to provide any covering protection with the extinguisher or tackle the fire, which if the driver was trapped would have reduced the chances of survival. We are unable to see if the driver is effectively being protected from the worst of the fire, based on the reports (although unconfirmed) it appears that the driver suffered relatively modest burns, which would indicate that either by chance or by intervention he was protected from the worst of the fire.
The fire in the cockpit area appears to be under control a few seconds following the driver being extricated.
Generally marshalls are recommended to not move an injured driver and make the scene safe, however if due to uncontrollable fire or other life threatening risk to remove the driver, but marshalls do not have suitable protection to enter and extricate from a burning vehicle, the overals are fire retardant, but your head is usually unprotected (although in this case the marshalls were wearing helmets that would give limited protection), and are trained to ensure that they remain safe.
The equipment being used appears to far from ideal, the fire would have been supressed significantly more quickly and effectively with powder as used in the UK. In terms of response time it was actually very good, there are plently of places on UK circuits where the first response would take longer.
There appear to be mistakes being made, watching remotely it is easy for me to think how I would approach it differently to those marshalls, however I cannot say that I would have been able to approach that incident and not have made any mistakes.
Finally most experienced marshalls will fortunately have never of dealt with an incident like this, and despite doing plenty of training including fire training on cars, I have never seen a training scenario that would accurately represent, or fully prepare for, an incident like this.
Ian
scootz - 26/5/10 at 06:50 PMquote:
Originally posted by scootz
quote:
Originally posted by Browser
Tom Pryce was decapitated.
No he wasn't... he suffered massive (and fatal) head injuries, but his head was still attached to his neck.
The decapitation story came about due to his helmet strap ripping through part of his neck just below the jaw-line.
richardh - 26/5/10 at 08:17 PMare they not left hand drive?
just from looking at it again it seems the fire is mostly on the right and if they'd got to him on the left (if it was a lefty) then he might have bee out quicker.
easy to say all this and all too sweeping and generalising without the pressure of the incident itself.
hope he recovers and that lessons are learned to make things safer for all motorsport.
totally all IMHO though with no knowledge of motorsport