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Hybrid Vehicles and Emergencies

Hybrid vehicles are still rather new on the market so most people don’t know how to react in case they get involved in an accident or an emergency. It is very important to know what to do in case your hybrid or someone else’s gets involved in an incident, especially since a hybrid not only has an electric battery, but also internal combustion.

If the vehicle is on fire, you should always remain at a distance. It might explode. Because hybrid combine gasoline engines and high voltage batteries, it is essential to make sure that the power is off. You should always assume the vehicle is powered up, even if the engine doesn’t make any noises. Such cars can be in ready position with very little or no sound or vibration, so the best thing to do is to chock the wheels.

Basically you should put the vehicle in park, you should turn off the ignition, depress the power button and remove the key. That will disable the high voltage battery system. Still, the system will not be safe for another 5 minutes or so. But if a collision has happened and if it looks bad, how can you tell there’s a hybrid involved? Well, hybrids have a very large battery pack. Remember never to touch anything orange: don’t cut, open, touch any orange components or wires or anything protected by an orange sleeve.

There are certain websites that advertise and offer training programs which teach people how to handle hybrin vehicles on emergencies. The reason why you want to check out these websites is because you might need to know what they contain in order to keep yourself and your family safe. And that stands even if you don’t own a hybrid: you never know what kind of driving incident you could become involved in.

http://www.emergencytrainingsolutions.com/onsite_training/rescue/hybrid_vehicle_onsite_training.htm http://www.meridianfiretraining.com/fire-training-hybrid-vehicles.htm http://www.evsafetytraining.org/resources/articles.aspx http://michiganfireservice.com/hybrid-electric-vehicle-systems-emergency-responders-training/442/ http://info-about-everything.com/hybrid-vehicle-training.html

 

Read Hybrid Vehicles: Training Programs and Educational Resources 
by Liz Lipton		 Read State Farm Web Cast on Hybrid Vehicles for Emergency Responders
by Liz Lipton