Dubai: Dubai Police’s Search and Rescue Department handled 235 sea and land rescue missions, in which 51 people were killed in the first nine months of 2016, a n official said.
Lt Col Ahmad Burqibah, deputy director of the Search and Rescue Department, said, “There were 134 land rescue missions, 56 sea rescues, and 45 cases of drowning,” he said, adding that it was an increase from the 227 rescue missions in the first nine months of last year, when 38 people died.
Including the rescue missions, the land rescue department participated in a total of 20,323 police missions and the maritime rescue participated in 208 in the same period.
Land rescue missions vary between cutting people out of crashed cars, assisting in car fires, freeing people locked in rooms or cars, helping people stuck in elevators, and other emergency situations.
In October, the land rescue team helped a 61-year-old GCC national who was trapped in an elevator in a building in Al Nahda because of a technical fault at 2.42am.
“He alerted the watchman by ringing the elevator alarm, and the watchman contacted the police. The rescue teams got to him within five minutes, and he was removed,” he said.
Lt Col Burquibah said that they have also assisted with a rescue mission in Masfout — an area that is part of Ajman, near Hatta.
“A two-year-old child had locked himself in a room. The rescue team that is positioned near Hatta responded as they were the closest. They broke the lock using a special drill and got him out. He was unharmed,” he explained.
Also in October, the rescue department helped extract a man, who died in a three-vehicle crash, and his passenger who was severely injured.
“The operations room received the call around 6.40pm about an accident on Mohammad Bin Zayed Road. The team was there within 10 minutes. They used hydraulic cutters to cut them out and extract them,” he said.
In a similar case, also in October, a 25-year-old GCC national crashed his vehicle into a cement barrier on Academic City Road. “He and his friend who was with him were severely injured and trapped in the car. The team cut the car using hydraulic cutters and rescued them,” Lt Col Burqibah said.
