Shifting scope

Pindi residents call Rescue 1122 for emergencies other than accidents

RAWALPINDI: Like other major cities of Pakistan, Rawalpindi faces dozens of road traffic accidents daily. These incidents constitute a major portion of the total number of emergencies.

Interestingly, the trends have changed in Rawalpindi where now these cases have been overtaken by other medical emergencies.

According to the data compiled by Punjab Emergency Service, Rescue 1122, the team at Rawalpindi district received above 46,000 emergency calls from January 1 to December 14 this year. Only 27 per cent of these calls were of traffic accidents. The remaining calls were mainly related to medical emergencies of a different nature.

Azra Shahid, Rescue Safety Officer of Rawalpindi District, said two years ago more accident cases were reported to Rescue 1122 in Rawalpindi.

“Now the pattern has changed here and the number of medical emergencies is relatively higher than accidents,” she stated.

Accident cases reported in the past were around 60 per cent while 40 per cent of cases belonged to other medical emergencies.

Rawalpindi, the fourth most populous city of Pakistan and the third most populous in Punjab, faced many fire accidents this year. Rescue 1122 data available with Bol News revealed that the emergency service responded to a total of 1,663 fire accidents.

Meanwhile, 1,299 cases were also handled by rescue teams which involved crimes and particularly those involving victims suffering bullet injuries.

It also handled 29 drowning cases, 20 cases of explosions or bomb blasts and a total of 4,900 miscellaneous emergency cases. This year, Rescue 1122 provided first aid to over 13,000 patients while it shifted a total of 28,000 patients to hospitals this year.

Azra Shahid said medical emergencies rose during the Covid-19 outbreak. “Almost one and half years ago, the trend of emergencies in Rawalpindi started changing and now calls related to medical emergencies are more common compared to traffic accidents in Rawalpindi.”

She explained that the pandemic had ‘badly impacted’ the health and livelihood of the people. “After the outbreak, more people went into depression and they developed various diseases like cardiac arrests, blood pressure and others.”

Meanwhile, she claimed, the response time to any emergency has improved since a software known as Emergency Management Dispatch System (EMDS) was introduced in Rescue 1122.

She elaborated that previously, the calls used to land in the control room and then the field teams were informed about them through a wireless system. Now, within a few seconds, any call of emergency is referred to the field teams, she added.

“Besides handling human-related emergencies, the field staff is also trained to conduct animal and bird rescue operations.”

She stated that currently, there are 32 ambulances, 20 fire tenders, four rescue vehicles, two recovery vehicles and four specialised vehicles which are available with Rescue 1122 Rawalpindi.

While recalling some bird and animal rescue operations, the officer said that once the emergency service team learnt about an owl who was badly injured and needed rescue.

“When the owl was rescued, it turned out it was a pet bird whose owner was unknown. The owl was given treatment and later on it was handed over to the department concerned of Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi.”

A person was interested in buying it against payment of Rs100,000, she stated. “However, his offer was turned down.”