‘This doesn’t happen often’: Temple Fire Department, EMS conducting critical insterstate highway accident training

TEMPLE, Texas (KWTX) - With several fatal accidents happening on Central Texas interstates this year, training for that scenario is crucial.

That is exactly what first responders in Temple are doing this week.

“Going over vehicle extrication,” Cpt. Justin Rhea, Training Captain, Temple Fire and Rescue. “These are some of the higher risk, low frequency events that we don’t always get to train on in a controlled setting.”

Firefighters are putting their tools and skills to work with the use of donated vehicles and training dummies.

“They get to use the, more commonly called jaws of life, but we call them spreaders or cutters,” said Cpt. Rhea. “That’s what we use to literally tear open cars to get that patient out of there.”

This is a joint training exercise with EMS to make sure both teams can work together effectively.

“We want to make sure that whenever we get on a scene, we’re on the same page, we’re acting together, we know exactly what the next step is,” Mathew Kaufman, Operations Manager for Temple Ems. “Regardless of if it’s a firefighter helping or it’s one of our EMS folks.”

This training is to simulate a real-life scenario.

So, while firefighters are getting into a car to get to a patient, EMS is getting another one in an air transport.

“We’re starting IV’s, we’re intubating patients, we’re stabilizing the spine, removing them from vehicles and getting them prepped and ready to be flown off of scene,” said Kaufman.

It’s all part of critical training they don’t get to do very often.

“It’s few and far between when we actually get to bring out helicopters and work with advanced care providers,” said Kaufman. “Whether it’s flight nurses or flight medics and get to do all of our skills along with the fire department. Actually, extricating people from vehicles. There’s a lot of steps from the moment you arrive on scene to the moment that patient actually flies out.”

This exercise is bringing all the pieces together for one big training operation taking place over several days.

“So, any opportunity we get to coordinate with them, we’ll take it,” said Cpt. Rhea.

The Medical Director over Temple Fire and EMS said getting both of her teams to work together in training like this means they will work together better in the field to save lives.

Copyright 2025 KWTX. All rights reserved.