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A Road Safety Simulation
posted (June 9, 2016)
And while that accident was dramatic and blocked highway traffic for hours, another that played out on the northern highway near the Biltmore Plaza this morning was just a simulation. Still, they made it look very real with bodies on the ground, severed arms and vehicles engulfed in flames.

And if you passed there this morning you might have been aghast at the scene. But it was all a simulation for the City Emergency Management Organization. Participants in a two day workshop on road traffic accidents jotted down recommendations for the strategic response to any given accident on the road. The Liaison Officer for CEMO told us more today.

Wayne Usher, Liaison Officer, CEMO
"What we did is we staged a 3 vehicle crash and we had players who role played as if they were injured, one dies and things like that. The players are the traffic departments of the transport department, traffic from Belize City, the police traffic department, we had the red cross, fire department, RF&G insurance and BERT ambulance. What you didn't see is that Karl Heusner hospital also took part. When the ambulance reached then with the role players then they went into action as to how they would deal with those accident victims, so they played as well."

Emanuel Pech
"At the end of that simulation, was there any critic of the level of response that each arm had in that scenario?"

Wayne Usher, Liaison Officer, CEMO
"Yes, the plan was for the participants in this symposium to all go out there with their little note pads and make the notes of what they observed. Also each stakeholder like fire, police, traffic, had their own persons who works with them critiquing it. One person critiquing how they performed, when did they arrive on the scene, what did they do on arrival, how long did they take to deal with the situation and all of that is critiqued, tabulated and recorded. Then this afternoon after lunch we all come together and each group one by one; fire, police, will get up, we videoed the entire scene, we will show clippings of each section and then we will critic that section on the time you arrived, how you did. The idea is not to bash anyone, the idea is to get everyone better at what they do. With everybody making notes and making suggestions, recommendations, they can only get better at what they do. That is the whole focus of what we are doing, to improve what you do, to improve our efficiency and capability in dealing with road traffic accidents."

Plans are already in place for next year's symposium, which hopes to incorporate a fire simulation.

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