The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) has improved its response time to accident scenes across the country, Zonal Commanding Officer, Zone RS7, FCT and Niger State, Assistant Corp Marshall, Shehu Mohammed has said.
According to ACM Mohammed, the development is due to funding and availability of equipment for the corps.
Mohammed said this during a training organised by Lifeline Association for FRSC and other stakeholders on Saturday in Abuja with the theme; “leveraging on technology in enhancing road safety operations”.
According to him, initially, when FRSC came up, there was no response to accident at all, but over the years, we have reduced it to 30, 15, 10, and now we are almost getting to five minutes response.
“This is because of the equipment that we have, government is doing very well in terms of funding and giving facilities to FRSC, that’s why the response time has been reduced to five minutes,” he said.
He said that the training was meant to achieve first response treatment of casualty, adding that the FRSC observed that over time some of its officers forgot how to prioritise victims of accidents that needed urgent attention.
He said that public enlightenment remained one cardinal objective to create awareness.
Dr Wole Olaomi, Chief Consultant Surgeon, National Trauma Centre, National Hospital Abuja, said that the standard given from the time an accident happened and when the official of FRSC must arrive at the scene should not be more than 10 minutes.
He said that teamwork remained the best that could be done to achieve such a result, adding that there should be a cordial inter-agency relationship that would help to achieve the target.
“We are all working for Nigeria, so teamwork is very important. You must always think at the scene of an accident if there are more people involved. You must look for extra people around there,” he said.
He cautioned officials of the corps to stop speeding when they put accident victims inside their patron van, adding that such patients could bleed to death as a result of the air.
Mr Omasan Imogu, Programme Coordinator, Lifeline Care Association, said that the association saw that there was a gap in the synergy among security agencies in terms of emergencies issues to rescue victims of accidents.
He, however, said that there was the need to understand the fact that the work is for everybody including Civil Defence, Fire Service and even the citizens. nan.
