Page 52 - Operation Lifesaver Estonia / Annual Report 2012

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© Operation Lifesaver is a international, non-profit education and awareness program dedicated to ending
tragic collisions, fatalities and injuries at highway-rail grade crossings and on railroad rights of way.
Founded in Estonia on 19 November 2004 - www.ole.ee
The professionalism of emergency response
personnel is of paramount importance in case of
dealing with the consequences of railway accidents.
The lives of people involved, as well as the people
living in the surrounding area, and the emergency
responders themselves may depend on their
activities. The emergency response personnel must
be able to map the situation during a very short
period of time identify the level of danger of derailed
freight and decide during a few seconds whether to
start closing a leakage or evacuate people from the
surrounding area.
For two years, OLE has worked with the project
targeted at emergency response personnel.
After mapping of the specific features of various
emergency response authorities (rescue services,
police, paramedics) we started last year the
development of training materials targeted at the
emergency response teams acting in the event of
railway accidents. By the time of publishing the
OLE’s annual report, these training materials are
ready and passed the coordination round in the
related agencies. I am glad to see that the materials
have been well received by the emergency response
teams and fount their place among other training
materials prepared by OLE.
In parallel with preparing the materials we
continued conducting our training courses in rescue
centres and police prefectures. In 2012 we organised
18 railway accident response trainings (12 to police
officers and 6 to rescue centres’ staff). We had in
total 314 listeners, 215 of which were police officers
and 99 rescue service employees.
As usual, we gave our audience the chance to test
the theoretical knowledge also in the real life.
This time we organised our practical training in
Vaivara railway station and according to the legend,
it involved a derailed freight train with dangerous
goods. The simulated railway accident helped the
emergency responders to test their knowledge and
gave us a couple of ideas how we could improve our
training materials.
For me personally it was a great pleasure to accept
last year Northern Police Prefecture’s honorary pin
and Southern Police Prefecture’s letter of gratitude
for the work done. It was a great acknowledgement
for OLE and shows once again that we deal with
something really necessary.
OLE has worked for two years with a
training programme for emergency
response personnel
Marius Kupper
OLE, Project Manager for Emergency Responders’
Presentations