One Critical After Vehicle Flips on I-75 CHATTANOOGA, TENN – Wednesday, May 23, 2007 – Just minutes before midnight tonight the Hamilton County 9-1-1 Communications Center received a call of a motor vehicle accident with injuries in about the 8000 block of Interstate 75 southbound.  The location was described as just south of a new exit being built. Heavy Rescue vehicle 1281 along with Engine 1245 and Heavy Rescue 1299 responded to the scene to find a Ford Explorer on its top, facing the wrong way against the concrete median.  Firefighters confirmed entrapment of a male party between the dashboard and the roof.  The firefighters immediately began the long task of extrication using the “jaws of life” as police officers from the Chattanooga Police Department protected the scene from oncoming vehicles. Extrication took about 40 minutes as both doors and the post on the passenger side of the vehicle had to be removed.  Once the driver was removed from the vehicle he was handed over to medics from Hamilton County Rescue Medic 7.  He was transported quickly to Erlanger Hospital in critical condition. According to witnesses on the scene, the vehicle was southbound when it went out of control and flipped. One witness said that the vehicle flipped so many times he could not count them.  An officer from the Traffic Investigation Division of the Chattanooga Police Department is conducting the investigation.  So far no cause has been given. Interestingly enough just as firefighters were able to remove the patient, police officers on the scene were advised of a high speed pursuit southbound on I-75 from Bradley County which is just a few miles north of the accident scene.  Officers were able to position firefighters to ensure their safety and prepared to put out stop sticks just south of the scene.  The pursuit exited the interstate at the exit just north of the scene, however, and emergency workers were able to return to their duties.  Almost twenty five-minutes later after the pursuit had exited the interstate and traveled the secondary roads several times the pursuit was still southbound.  Several more agencies in Tennessee as well as Georgia had joined the pursuit by then.