09/19/2026
George Hurst made gearshifts for drag racers.
Then he stood at a racetrack and watched a crash crew take over an hour to get a driver out of a wrecked car. Saws were slow. Crowbars made it worse.
So he built a hydraulic spreader strong enough to pull a car apart. The first one weighed 350 pounds. He hired a man named Mike Brick to take it to market, and Brick shrank it to 65 pounds and carried it to the fire service.
Crews still cut people out of cars with it.
