We must be better prepared for large-scale events

In a letter to Newsday, Ramroop said a large number of people could lose their lives or limbs if emergency response is not appropriate. Dealing with the issue of whether the country is prepared to handle a stadium collapse, Ramroop said a lot of work dealing with such disasters and with events featuring large crowds had been done in the past with tournaments such as the Under 17 FIFA Soccer World Cup, the ICC World Cup Cricket and major events such as the Summit of the Americas and Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference (CHOGM). But, he said, a lot of the standard operating procedures developed for those events had not been practised and shared among the heads of the fire, police, military and ambulance services.

He said while any stadium is being built or renovated, mitigation procedures must be provided and especially in a country such as this with a high risk of earthquakes, structural mitigation should be embedded in the planning for any large event or function. Even in a building which cannot sustain a major earthquake, it is equally important, he said, for people to be able to evacuate the building quickly, and proper safety systems should be in place.

He said it was also important to have police and private security and fire officers on hand to ensure that safety and security protocols and laws are followed.

The arrangements should include a venue operating centre staffed by a senior commanding officer from the police, fire, ambulance, venue security and operations, event organiser and communications officers from the venue and the event.

This permits better exchange of information and decision- making and has been found to save more lives and limbs than even having 100 safety officers with no proper system of communication amongst themselves and between the different agencies controlled and co-ordinated by the members of the venue operating command centre.

He said large crowd events can present many hazards, among them poor security checks at entrances and infrequent monitoring, which could allow people with dangerous weapons to enter the venue and cause panic and even stampedes leading to building and stage collapses with deaths and serious injuries.

Whenever there is a large crowd event, he said, hospitals in the area must be prepared and have the capacity to accept an increased number of admissions, usually called a surge capacity, amounting to about 20 percent of their normal operating capacity.

The hospital’s emergency department should also have a field response team in place and ready to deal with any mass casualty event – usually defined as an event involving serious injury to more than 25 people.

If the event does materialise, Ramroop said, it is better to stabilise victims at a safe place near where the incident happened rather than at the hospital, because this prevents a large number of people with minor injuries from being sent there at the expense of the critically injured.

He said more lives and limbs are lost that way and where there are large numbers of victims, it is better for trained medical personnel to assess them at the scene and perform life-saving procedures there rather than transferring all the victims, which increased the possibility that some who could be saved might die en route.