A Prairie Village driver pulled from his burning truck is recovering at an area hospital thanks to recently added equipment to police patrol cars.
The Prairie Village Police Department recently switched out its household fire extinguishers with ColdFire extinguishers, an investment that made all the difference in Monday morning's crash.
The driver, who is in his early 20s, has not been identified. Police responded to 79th and Belinder and found him trapped in his burning pick-up truck.
Video from a patrol car's dash camera showed a neighbor trying to use a standard extinguisher, but officers say those are useless with a fire that big.
Officers grabbed their ColdFire extinguishers and quickly put the fire out.
"You can hear at one point an officer will tell the driver 'Just relax. We're going to get you out of here,'" Sgt. Ivan Washington said about the dash cam video.
The driver is being in the burn unit of a local hospital. Officers say he has a long road to recovery.
Without the extinguishers, officers would not have been able to help. Instead they would have to wait until firefighters arrived, and in those situations every second counts.
Washington said the extinguishers are also used in NASCAR and Indy 500 crashes. Prairie Village added them after a study was done by the Lenexa Police Department.
