Emergency service

Emergency services are public services that deal with emergencies and other aspects of Public Safety.

Related Topics:
Emergencies - Public Safety

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Depending on the country, and the terms used, emergency services include many of the below:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• the fire service and firefighters
• for mass emergencies, community emergency response teams
• the emergency medical service
• the ambulance services including paramedics / emergency medical technicians
• the police
• park rangers
• emergency operations, often managed by the fire service.

Specialized emergency services include:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• maritime search and rescue services such as the local coastguard, lifeboat or surf lifesavers.
• mountain rescue teams
• mine rescue teams
• bomb disposal teams
• earthquake rescue teams, also known as urban search and rescue teams or heavy rescue teams
• famine relief teams

Mass emergencies such as floods, earthquakes, snowstorms, tornados and hurricanes overload professional emergency services. Consider the math: A community of 100,000 typically will have about ten fire trucks. Many jurisdictions do not cross-train police as light rescue personnel. If the emergency traps or injures just 2% of the population, 2,000 rescues will be needed. Since each rescue takes about a half hour, and there are ten trucks, the rescues will take about 100 hours to complete. People in shock will begin to die within two hours. Trapped children will begin to die of thirst in one day, trapped adults and shut-ins in two days. As many as 1500 deaths might be prevented by simple rescue and first-aid, if it were only available quickly.

Related Topics:
Flood - Earthquake - Tornado - Hurricane - Shock

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• Some regions therefore perform mass training of amateurs to cope with mass emergencies, in a program called community emergency response teams.
• In mass emergencies, coordination is crucial. This is usually provided by some form of emergency operations.
• The military can sometimes help in mass emergencies, although they can rarely mobilize quickly enough to make a significant difference, and often have incompatible doctrines.

Emergency responders are persons who respond to a call for help to an emergency telephone number. Typically they are sent by a emergency dispatch center. Many countries have special emergency numbers, such as 911 in North America, 999 in Britain or 000 in Australia. Due to the increase in international travel and mobile phones capable of operating in different countries, an international emergency GSM mobile telephone number 112 has been agreed upon. This works in all GSM mobiles and on landline phones in European Union countries, ex Soviet Union countries, some mobile networks in the United States and many other countries. In most cases the existing national number(s) also works.

Related Topics:
Call for help - Emergency telephone number - Dispatch - GSM - 112

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Generally, emergency services are provided through PSTN. Now, there are some research going on for providing emergency services through VoIP, check this link for more details http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/ecrit-charter.html

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In most jurisdictions, emergency responders are immune from tort liability for acts occurring within the scope of their employment. Such immunity frees them from worrying that their efforts to rescue an injured person will expose them to a lawsuit if the rescue goes badly. However, emergency responders are also considered to have a duty to rescue, and may be held liable for failing to act altogether when presented with a person in need of aid.

Related Topics:
Tort - Lawsuit - Duty to rescue

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 
Emergency service: See also ►