6,987 rescue operations undertaken in 6 months
14 July 2006
ABU DHABI — The Rescue and Ambulance Section (RAS) affiliated to the General Department of Central Operations at Abu Dhabi Police has undertaken 6,987 rescue missions in the first half of the current year.
The humanitarian missions pertained to traffic accident casualties, urgent domestic cases and the like, according Colonel Khalid Abdu Latif Al Dosari, director of the Rescue and Ambulance Section.
Col Dosari told Khaleej Times that the RAS responds to all kinds of requests 24-hours-a-day and aims to "quickly provide assistance to injured people and transfer them to hospitals so that they can avail necessary medical assistance".
Col. Dosari underscored that rescue teams took less than 10 minutes to arrive at the scene of accident. "Fulfilling directives of the Minister of Interior Lt-General Shaikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan and under the supervision of Brigadier Ahmed Nassir Al Rayesi, director general of the General Department of Central Operations, the RAS has worked towards providing the best service as per a strategic plan."
The RAS, he said, was incorporating advanced technology and medical protocols in the field of emergency medicine in order to deal with all emergency cases besides also enhancing local human resources through persistent training programmes within and without the country.
Col. Dosari clarified that the number of injured persons attended to by ambulance and rescue vehicles in Abu Dhabi over a six-month period had touched 6,277.
Nearly 3,857 of these cases related to simple injuries, 2,566 cases involved moderate injuries and 379 cases involved serious injuries, he said. There had been 185 deaths resulting from these accidents, including 15 cases of drowning, he added.
Pointing out that home SOS' had accounted for the most requests, he said around 2,658 victims had been moved to hospitals following traffic accidents. The department also dealt with 276 cases of falls from high-rises in addition to 278 SOS calls following domestic assault, 38 psycho cases, and 22 cases of attempted suicide.
Col. Al Dosari called on members of the public to cooperate with the rescue and ambulance teams by making sure they furnished the address accurately.
abu dhabi - local newspaper
