Moray’s emergency services were called to deal with a multiple car crash involving two cars and a minibus last night.
More than 70 fire personnel, NHS staff and three ambulance crews attended the multi-exercise ’emergency’ at Elgin fire station.
The services had to contend with 13 patients two of whom were time sensitive and had to be carried out to an ambulance on a stretcher.
Crews from four fire appliances and had to cut the roof off a bronze coloured people carrier which was on its side and had a casualty trapped inside.
A blue hatchback also had a casualty who was trapped and was removed on a stretcher.
There were nine people in the minibus who were described as walking wounded.
A triage tent and mobile skills unit which doubles up as a mobile hospital was set up to deal with casualties on site.
Stephen Laing, fire watch manager, said: “This is the first time that I’ve been involved in a joint agency event of this size which goes to show how infrequently they occur. I’ve been in the fire service for quite a long time and I think this was an excellent exercise.
“We had a significant turnout for a road traffic collision, but it doesn’t make it a major incident for the fire service.”
Mr Laing added: “The reason we were taking so long to free the casualty in the car on its side was because we had been given doctors advice he was stable and didn’t need to be quickly removed.
“We created space which makes it a more comfortable removal for the casualty – if he deteriorates rapidly the tail gate was open and he would have been hauled out quickly.”
Mr Laing said it was a good opportunity to work with the ambulance staff: “It was a great opportunity to work in tandem with our colleagues in the ambulance service and I think we have all taken something away from it.”
Karen Birse, area ambulance service manager who acted as incident manager on the night, said: “We were fortunate to have enough staff on scene and have the roles identified which is quite unique for us so we had a reception officer who took note of all ambulance staff who arrived on scene.
“We then identified a casualty clearing officer, communications officer and two forward clearing officers and a scribe who assisted me as ambulance incident officer. “Each one played their roles exceptionally well.
“We gave regular updates to the ambulance control centre and got good feedback from them.
“The communication was really good with the fire staff.”
Ms Birse said that there was some learning points that ambulance staff could learn on in the future such as the casualty clearing station needing to keep a log of the casualties and their injuries.
She added that overall the way staff dealt with the incident had gone well and thanked the ‘patients’ who would not be used to being in such an incident.
Dr Pam Hardy, consultant in the A&E department at Dr Gray’s Hospital in Elgin, said: “It was a great opportunity for all the services to work together on a training exercise.”
All emergency staff agreed that the exercise had gone well and will allow them to put their skills into practice for any future real emergency.
