From George Ernest Asare, Kumasi.
THE Ashanti Regional Fire Service has organised a programme to retrain its personnel on the techniques of rescuing accident victims.
The exercise was also meant to select a team to represent the region in a competition on accident rescue operation in Accra.
Six fire stations participated in the exercise, which was won by the Ejusu–Konongo Fire Station. The other teams were the Regional Headquarters Fire Station, the Metro, Komfo Anokye, Mamponteng and Nkawie Fire stations.
The Ashanti Regional Instruction Officer, Mr James Baba Asalibanyina, who briefed The Mirror on the exercise, explained that given the rate of accidents on the highways and the number of casualties, the need to retrain “our officers to enable them to respond quickly to emergencies is paramount”.
He said the numerous death and permanent injuries sustained through road accidents could be traced to sympathisers who rushed to accident scenes with the aim of rescuing accident victims.
“Many of the sympathisers have no training and experience on accident rescue mission and so in their rush to save accident victims, they handle them anyhow, thus compounding the plight and injury of the victims, causing some of them to lose their lives, while others sustain permanent disabilities,” he explained.
Mr Philip Aheng-Mensah, the Ashanti Regional Fire Officer, said about 21 per cent of deaths and permanent disabilities associated with accidents could be traced to the way sympathisers handled accident victims.
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