Real life lessons from fake crash

By Freya McClements
BBC News

The emergency services at work during the crash scene reconstruction

The emergency services arrive at the scene of a head-on collision in County Tyrone.

One car is mangled almost beyond recognition; in the other, a woman lies slumped over the steering wheel.

Such accidents are all too familiar on the roads of the north west - except that for once, this isn't a real crash.

Instead it's a graphic lesson in road safety for further education students in Londonderry, Limavady, Strabane and Letterkenny.

Positioned safely behind the police tape, the students watch as the emergency services arrive at the scene of the collision and assess the condition of the two casualties.

A group of eight paramedics and firefighters immediately start the painstaking task of freeing a woman from the wreckage of her car.

Members of the PSNI and An Garda Siochana stand by, waiting to breathalyse the 'victims'.

As the exercise goes on, it becomes apparent that the man in the second car has been killed.

Firemen cut him from the wreckage before members of the ambulance service place him in a body bag and wheel him to the ambulance - to the shock of some of the students watching.

Reality check

Deirdre Doherty, 17, said she had just started learning to drive.

"I'm actually really really shocked, watching that, to see that I could cause that harm to someone else," she said.

"It is really back to reality, it would scare you watching it."

Deirdre said it would make her take more care on the road.

"It really would, I agree with what they're doing.

"There's a good strong message behind it."

Paramedics try to free the 'victim' from her car

Her friend Rachel Walker agreed.

"It's good to see what the police, fire service and the ambulance all do together in a case like that.

"It just shows you how serious things like that can be and how much work goes into getting somebody out of a car," she said.

Harry Rutherford from Limavady Road Safety was one of the organisers of the event.

He said it was important that the exercise was as realistic as possible.

"Statistics show that more collisions are caused by 17-24 year olds than any other age group.

"Here they've seen the road collision scene, they've seen two people being cut out of cars and being put into in one case an ambulance and in the other case a body bag.

"If all this means that just one accident is prevented, one life is saved, then it's worth it," he said.

Station commander Paul Coyle from the Fire and Rescue Service agreed.

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"It would certainly be hoped that it had a very deep impact on those that were witnessing this.

"They are all students of car-driving age, and the hope from all of us, as a collective emergency service response, is that the message gets through to them.

"Just be extremely careful on the roads.

"Don't speed, don't be tempted to drink and drive," he said.

"What we've all seen here today is no different from what you get in reality on the roads."