Fire Personnel Equipped With Skills

Personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) in Bolgatanga were on Thursday trained on Road Traffic Collision (RTC) to equip them with skills to handle victims of accidents.

Mr Edwin Ekow Blankson, Upper East Regional Commander of the Ghana Fire Service, said the RTC training was to build the experience of the personnel and equip them with skills to save lives of casualties during accidents.

He said in road accidents where casualties were trapped, personnel provided expertise management of mangled vehicles to allow easy and efficient removal of victims with support from a technical team on health.

He commended the personnel from the GNFS headquarters who were in the region for the exercise and urged his men to work hard during the training.

Mr Joseph Kwame Mensah, Assistant Divisional Officer in charge of Road Traffic Collision, who led the training team, said the exercise was part of an annual training programme held at the various regional capitals and districts to equip personnel with skills in handling accident victims in wreckages.

He said the training was organised in partnership with the World Rescue Organization which provided logistical support.

He expressed gratitude to management for bringing the National Ambulance close to the service to afford the two institutions the opportunity to collaborate and urged the personnel to continuously practice since practice contributed to perfection.

Mr Mensah, later in an interview, attributed challenges that might militate against efficiency in salvaging wrecked vehicles to non availability of equipment for cutting accident vehicles and said through more of such training exercises the personnel would become expedient.

He said it was important that personnel handling accident victims were careful so that they did not add more injuries to what the victims had suffered.