VIDEO: At first glance, it might look like child’s play: grown firefighters gathered around a table covered with Hot Wheels cars and tiny emergency vehicles. But don’t be fooled by the toy factor. This training could save lives โ both for first responders and the people they’re sworn to protect.
“Road incidents, especially on the highway, are actually our most dangerous calls, both to us and the general public,” said Payton Daetwiler, a firefighter and EMT with the Walker Fire Department. “Even though it looks a little silly with Hot Wheels โฆ it’s actually really good to go over strategies.”
Daetwiler, who’s been with the department just nine months, joined fellow firefighters for specialized training in traffic incident management. The course uses miniature emergency vehicles to teach proper positioning at crash scenes โ techniques that could mean the difference between life and death on Michigan’s busy roads.
The scaled-down approach gives responders what Daetwiler calls “almost like a God’s view of things,” helping them understand not just where to position their trucks, but why those decisions matter. Ron Tennant, Rockford’s fire chief and a longtime advocate for traffic incident management, led the training session.
