Story: Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu, Takoradi
RESCUE service providers in the Western Region, especially in the Sekondi/Takoradi Metropolitan Area (STMA), have expressed dissatisfaction at the intrusion of the public in their operations.
They complained about the obstruction of roads by onlookers during emergency situations, such as fire outbreaks and vehicular accidents.
Those who suffer most from this public intrusion are the Ghana National Fire Service, the Ambulance Service and the police.
It is a fact that during fire outbreaks, road traffic and other domestic accidents adrenalin run high; everybody wants to catch a glimpse of what is going on.
Normally, every country has emergency telephone lines to get in touch with rescue service providers in the event of fire outbreaks, accidents and other emergencies.
In Ghana, for instance, the emergency line for the Ghana Police Service is 191; the Ghana Fire and Rescue Service, 192, and 193 for the Ambulance Service.
If a distressed caller dials 191 to announce a road accident or fire outbreak, the police are supposed to move in to secure the crime scene to ensure that nobody tampers with the evidence and for the fire and ambulance services to do their work without any obstruction.
But during fire outbreaks or road traffic or even domestic accidents in the metropolis and other parts of the country, members of the public besiege the crime scene, making it difficult for the rescuers to conduct thorough investigations.
A typical example was when fire broke out on the Liberation Road in Takoradi on Monday. The crowd blocked the access route to where the fire was raging, making it difficult for the fire service personnel to move their vehicles freely.
At a point, some people stood on the hoses that were to supply water from the tenders to the source of the fire. This did not only frustrate the efforts of the fire fighters but also delayed the fire fighting and rescue operations.
The same could be said of similar fire outbreaks at the Takoradi Central Market more than a year ago and also recently at the Apremdu markets, Kumasi, Accra, among other places and towns.
During such situations, fire fighters at a point away had to plead with the people to move from the hoses to allow for the free flow of water to fight the fires. It was clear during last Monday’s fire outbreak on the Liberation Road that even though the police, the fire and ambulance services were up to the task, there was no co-ordination among them.
The police were at the scene, combat ready with AK47 riffles and positioned themselves far away from the fire scene. One expected the police to be able to control the crowd by any means necessary to ensure that nobody trespassed the restricted area to either distort evidence or frustrate the rescue operations.
There should be effective co-ordination between the fire, police and the ambulance services. The first thing the police should do is to secure the scene of the disaster as a first step for other rescue service providers and investigators to move in.
But interestingly, the police officers distance themselves from the scene of the accident or fire.
Fire fighters have to be shouting “give way, give way, and give way” in order to clear the intruding public to enable them do their work.
It is worrying to say that, the story at the scene on the liberation road pertains in every part of the country. It is important to remind the police that despite the fact that they are under resourced, it is their responsibility to block the roads to allow for free movement in emergency situations.
The fact is that if the basic containment is wrong, the rescue mission will not achieve any meaningful results.
To the experts, it was the duty of the police to prevent the general public, be it the residents, owners of properties engulfed in fire, occupants, relatives, transients, spectators, even at a point, news men from the scene, since they tend to hamper the operations.
In situations like that they said, tact and courtesy must be deployed to keep them safe and away from harm or obstructing fire operations. It was rather sad to see the chief operations officer of the fire service in Takoradi,Mr Joseph Tameklo, acting as the commander of his squad and at the same time controlling the crowd.
He told the Daily Graphic after about 45 minutes of fighting fire that it was important to keep fire areas clear for fire fighting purposes since the equipment such as emergency, service and fire-fighting vehicles must have enough room to park, operate within, turn around, and even lay hoses for fire-fighting operations, among others.
Mr Tameklo said that was also to protect the equipment of the fire service and keep all ‘non-firefighters’ away.
Interestingly while the raging fire was being controlled media practitioners were calling the officers, who were busy to grant them interviews, when it was clear that the circumstance would not permit them to do so.
It is, therefore, very important that these essential units in the social life of the country work together to ensure that there is harmony in their service delivery so that during situations such as happened at the Liberation Road and other parts of the country the situation would be brought under control.
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