Emergency services: Rescuers trained in dealing with emergencies at collapsed building sites graduate

592 personnel graduate in the 18th batch of Rescue 1122

LAHORE: Training of 592 rescuers in the 18th batch of Rescue 1122 who graduated at a ceremony held on Saturday included special courses on emergency medical response, search and rescue operations at collapsed building sites and community safety.

The cadets were also trained in firefighting and rescuing people trapped in fire and other emergencies at multi-storey buildings.

The passing out ceremony at the Emergency Services Academy, Thokar Niaz Baig, also featured display of skills by the graduates. They performed a mock rescue at [staged] scenes of a bomb explosion and a fire. Another exercise was about rescuing people trapped in a multi-storey building.

Earlier, Emergency Services Academy registrar Farhan Khalid welcomed the guests to the ceremony and congratulated the graduates on successful completion of training. He praised Rescue 1122 founding Director General Rizwan Naseer, who now serves as the secretary general of the Pakistan Red Crescent Society, for his effort to expand the scope of the emergency service to all district headquarters of the province. He said the service was now also available at the tehsil level.

Khalid said he hoped that the graduates would maintain the high standards of service for which Rescue 1122 was known in the country. He said training of a large batch of rescuers was a challenging task. He added that it had been pulled off well by the team of trainers. He said the graduates would now be required to complete an on-the-job training at major public hospitals in their districts. He said they would be assigned regular field duties on completion of the assignment.



Former Rescue 1122 DG Rizwan Naseer the service was known because of the state-of-the-art training of its personnel. He said over 10,000 rescuers had completed training at the Emergency Services Academy since its inception. He said those trained at the academy included 844 personnel from Khyber Pukhtunkhwa; 52 from Azad Jammu and Kashmir and 204 from Gilgit Baltistan. Further, he said 429 people from Aman Foundation, Karachi; 330 from the Punjab Police; 149 from Mayo Hospital administration, 22 from Social Security Hospital administration and 12 students from the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) had also been trained at the facility.

He informed the gathering that Rescue teams had taken care of over 3.5 million emergencies since its inception. He said real estate and other valuables saved across the province in the various fire fighting efforts were estimated to be valued around Rs185 billion.

Edward G Pearns from the United Nations-Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA) said the Emergency Services Academy was the second largest facility of its kind in the world. He said emergency rescue and relief efforts in the Punjab had seen a major boost with the establishment of Rescue 1122 service. He said he was glad the service had expanded its operations to other provinces as well.

Pearns said during his interaction with some graduates, they had come across as highly motivated and hard working personnel.

Rescue 1122 Director General Brig (r) Arshad Zia was also present at the occasion.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 9^th, 2015.