Firefighters free woman from car after collision

Long Beach firefighters freed a woman from a vehicle on Sunday afternoon following a two-car collision at Shore Road and Long Beach Boulevard that resulted in no serious injuries.

Police were called at 3:45 p.m., and ambulances arrived at the scene at 3:48 p.m., according to Fire Commissioner Scott Kemins.

The passenger door of one of the cars was too badly damaged to open, and the woman was unable to climb to the other side, Kemins said. Once firefighters popped open the door — using a hydraulic rescue tool known as the Jaws of Life — the woman got out of the car on her own and refused medical assistance, he added.

The driver of that car, the woman’s husband, was not injured, Kemins said. The other driver, whose car sustained front-end damage in the “low-speed” collision, was not seriously injured, he added, but later requested assistance and was transported to Long Beach’s emergency department.

The LBFD also responded to an overturned vehicle at 5:43 p.m. on Saturday in East Atlantic Beach at Brookline Avenue and Beech Street. Everyone was out of the vehicle by the time emergency responders arrived, Kemins said, and nobody was injured.

Kemins said the Fire Department deals with all kinds of situations where a driver or passenger is trapped in the vehicle, and the one on Sunday was executed quickly and smoothly.

“Every accident is different, every car is different,” he said. “To get a patient out like yesterday, you use one tool and you just pop the door, it takes about 30 seconds and you’re done. Then you have extrication [if] you take a wreck on the Southern State Parkway, somebody hits a tree, and it could take 45 minutes to an hour to cut the car out from around a patient.”