Emergency service

Emergency services are public services that deal with emergencies and other aspects of 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.
public utility and public works crews

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
urban search and rescue teams, also known as earthquake rescue teams or heavy rescue teams
famine relief teams

Emergency responders

Emergency responders are persons who respond to a call for help to an emergency telephone number. Typically they are sent by an 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, former Soviet Union countries, some mobile networks in the United States and many other countries. In most cases the existing national number(s) also works. Generally, emergency services are provided through the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Now, there are some research going on for providing emergency services through VoIP ^*. 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.

Blue light users

In the United Kingdom a number of services are permitted by the Road Vehicle Licensing Regulations to display blue lights on their vehicles. No other groups are permitted to use blue lights. The term blue-light services has become synonymous with emergency services in many european countries.

Mass emergency

See also disaster, emergency management

Mass emergencies such as floods, earthquakes, snowstorms, tornados and hurricanes overload local professional emergency services. In western society, a community of 100,000 typically will have about ten fire trucks. Many jurisdictions do not cross-train all emergency services as light rescue personnel. 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 promptly available. Some regions therefore resort to mass training of amateurs or volunteers as reserve for mass emergencies. In the USA these units are 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 in most countries they rarely mobilize quickly enough to make a significant difference, and often have incompatible doctrines due to inappropriate disaster preparedness measures.

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Emergency responders

Blue light users

Mass emergency

See also