Every second counts for victims in a severe car accident, but area rescue personnel took a step toward reducing the seconds victims spend in their mangled wrecks.

About 40 people from seven fire departments took part in a vehicle extrication class held Saturday at the Woodruff Community Center. Instructors from the La Crosse, Monroe and Madison fire departments spent eight hours explaining the fastest ways to get to trapped passengers.

Those students came from Woodruff, Arbor Vitae, Minocqua, Lac du Flambeau, lake Tomahawk, Kronenwetter and Hamburg departments.

"What we teach are techniques that save time when somebody is in an emergency situation in an entangled vehicle," fire and rescue extrication specialist John Olshanski said. "Ultimately, rescue squads responding to these situations should take no more than 20 minutes of what we call the ‘Golden Hour’ to extract victims from a vehicle."

Olshanski, a La Crosse firefighter, has more than 19 years of experience in fire, rescue and emergency medical services.

The class was hosted by the Arbor Vitae and Woodruff fire departments. Kumbier Towing Service provided most of the vehicles.

"The main reason we got this class up here for our local fire departments to use, particularly on mutual aid calls," Arbor Vitae member Courtland Sheppard said. "This way us, Woodruff, Minocqua, Lake Tomahawk all can have the same education."

Two of the instructors, Olshanski and Kurt Wiggert, are international trainers and evaluators of rescuers. Other instructors, including Jim Olshanski, Matt Erdman and Gary Conohan, are highly trained in these extrication techniques.

The state Department of Transportation’s Highway Safety Division sponsored the class.

The eight-hour class starts with an hour-long lecture, focusing on the "Golden Hour." This is the first hour after the accident where a traumatized patient has the best chance for recovery from that trauma if he or she can be safely delivered to an emergency medical facility and a surgeon.

The national average from initial time of call to the time a patient gets to the operating room is 73 minutes. Of that time, 35 minutes is spent in extrication. The techniques taught here aim to cut at least 10-15 minutes in extrication.

After the lecture, it’s all hands-on training. In the afternoon, that meant tearing cars apart in the Woodruff Community Center parking lot.

"We’ll recreate different accident situations," Olshanski said. "We’ll have cars upside down or set up impingement situations. Hopefully by the end of the day, each team will successfully attack single and multi-car accident situations and gotten inside them within 20 minutes of the golden hour."

"They break us down into groups of six or seven students per one teacher," Sheppard said. "The groups are small so you learn more. They set up different scenarios. One group sits inside while another one sets is up, then you just out and do it."

"Hopefully within 20 minutes, we extricate whoever is in the car," he added. "If you don’t get to them in that time, you figure they’re dead. It’s a lot of fun."

Sheppard and a handful of others from the Arbor Vitae department first took the class a few months ago in Vesper.

"It is fantastic." He said. "We learned more in eight hours from these guys than we did in three weeks at Nicolet. It’s all hands-on."

The one tool most people associate with extrication is the Jaws of Life. While that is a key piece, Olshanski said there are more tools that have become important in getting through a wreckage.

"Today’s cars are so technologically different from cars from a few years ago," Olshanski said. "Because they’re changing in technology, we have to change the tools with them."

Band cutters, plasma cutters, airguns, super sheers are just some of the tools used now. Spreaders, cutter and rams powered by gas power unites were commonly used on Saturday.

"The metals used in cars today are thinner," Olshanski said. "It’s cutting more than spreading now. We use these tools to complement the Jaws of Life."

Woodruff Fire Chief Mike Timmons said during a break Saturday that he was learning a lot.

"It’s one of those things were you hope you never have to use what you’ve learned," Timmons said.

Olshanski said his expertise mainly comes through his membership with the International Association of Fire Chiefs, the Transportation Emergency Rescue Committee and Car Users Entrapment Extrication Society.

"All the techniques and tools we use are field tested by TERC and by our research team in La Crosse." Olshanski said. "It’s sort of a funnel system. We do the research in the junkyards, and then we share what we’ve learned with communities that are willing to learn it."

Sheppard hopes even more advanced classes can be brought here. This again will not only help Arbor Vitae, which is in the process of setting up a rescue squad service, but other departments can benefit to.

"If we save one life, then all the schooling is worth the money we paid to get it," Sheppard said. " The Jaws of Life we ordered is worth $17,000. If we save one person’s life with that over the next five years it will be worth it. That’s the way we look at it… The quicker we can get to a person, the better the chance of survival.