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Road Accidents

Road accidents are increasingly on the rise in our metropolitan cities. It is the duty of every law abiding citizen to know, how to tackle a victim of road accidents.

First Aid in Road Accidents


  1. Ensure that your car or vehicle is a short distance away from the site of accident and parked well off the road. Make sure that the passing traffic is ware that an accident has occurred by putting a red warning triangle or signal (red cloth etc) about 200 yards (65 meter) from the site of accident. Any onlooker can be employed as a traffic controller, and may help to divert the traffic in an emergency.
  2. Check that the vehicles are safe - switch off the ignition, apply breaks and if possible, put the car in gear. Extinguish any smoke coming from the vehicle. Leave victims in position, unless fire is a risk. Trying to pull the victim out can only waste valuable time and even exacerbate existing injuries. The rescue services have special tools to cut people out of damaged vehicles and this difficult task should be best left to them.
  3. Look for victims who have been thrown well clear of vehicles, e.g. into ditches or over hedges. Establish an order of priority treatment.
  4. Treat victims in order of priority. Deal with breathing, bleeding and unconsciousness in that order. Move victims as little as possible.
  5. Don't smoke anywhere near the location of the car crash. Leaking petrol may catch fire.
  6. Send first available person for emergency services, giving information about location, number of cars and injured and types
  7. of injury.
  8. While your are waiting for the emergency services, try to discourage other motorists and passerby from hanging around, unless they can offer expert help.
  9. Stay with the accident victims, until the ambulance arrives. Watch them carefully to ensure that the breathing does not stop, bleeding does not ensue and no one loses consciousness. Try to be reassuring.
  10. Take advantage of any spare time to gather information to help the emergency services. Collect a list of names and addresses from the least inured victims and take a note of the vehicle number plates. Give all this to the police or ambulance men when they arrive. You should also give a thorough account of any first aid measures that you have taken.