The Ghana National Fire Service on Thursday opened a competition in Accra for its personnel nationwide dubbed; "National Fire Extrication Challenge 2010".
Two-day competition was to adequately prepare them to participate in an international competition scheduled for Ireland in September this year.
The GNFS is a member of World Rescue Organisation (WRO) that supervises roles played by member countries in rescuing accident victims.
Ghana has progressed from the fifth to the second position in the world in rescuing roles and together with South Africa had been representing Africa at the World Extrication Challenge.
Mr. Prince Anaglate, Assistant Division Officer and Deputy Public Relations Officer of GNFS said the competition would help create awareness among the public that most of the deaths which occurred during accidents were due to unprofessional handling of victims.
He explained that people at accident scenes tended to use unprofessional tools to rescue victims trapped in damaged vehicles, causing
more injuries to the victims.
Mr Anaglate said most of the fatal injuries could have been minimized if fire service personnel were informed on time.
"When you get to an accident scene, there is nothing you can do to help those who are trapped because you don't have what it takes to do so. You
can't force a victim who is trapped out of a damaged vehicle, what you have to do is to call fire service personnel on time to help," he said.
Mr. Anaglate explained that personnel informed of an accident would rush to the scene and demobilize the victims, using professional equipment, expertise, skills and techniques to rescue the victims to promote recovery and prevent other injuries.
He called on all organizations including non governmental ones to offer assistance by providing more road traffic extricating vehicles to the GNFS to help in minimizing injuries on the roads.
"The GNFS needs about 250 vehicles to help in its operations in the country to supplement the five road traffic extricating vehicles in
existence," he added.