The Hungarian Reformed Church Aid (HRCA) organised a complex emergency preparedness and management exercise. During the large-scale training, the medical team and the search and rescue team of HRCA had to solve theoretical and practical tasks.
The Hungarian Reformed Church Aid held a three-day emergency management exercise in Hajdúszoboszló between 17 and 19 September. The internationally experienced specialized Medical Intervention Team, and the recently established Search and Rescue Team participated jointly at the training. The aim of the combined exercise was to enable the two teams to work together in a coordinated way to answer real disaster situations effectively. The participants were trained how to use radio communication, fire-fighting and safety equipment, they refreshed their skills in CPR and received psychological training to deal with unexpected stressful situations.
The main event of the exercise was a simulation of a mass-casualty incident. In the imaginary scenario, a bus and a train collided and the force of the collision caused the train to derail. As a result of the accident, several people were injured, many of them seriously. The fire brigade of the search and rescue service had to deal with the accident, while the medical team was responsible for the professional treatment of the injured. As part of the exercise, one person went missing and was found by the search and rescue team's search dog Níla.
The team composed of professionals and volunteers successfully overcame the obstacles and successfully completed the three-day training, which is planned to be organised every year thereafter.
Since its establishment in 2008, the HRCA Disaster Response Medical Team has served in natural or humanitarian disasters in Haiti, Afghanistan, the Philippines and most recently in Bangladesh during a two-week mission in 2018. The Research Rescue Team of the HRCA was established in 2019 and its tasks include participating in canine rescue missions and missing persons searches, as well as assisting the Hajdú-Bihar County Fire Brigade as a volunteer firefighting association. The members of the Research Rescue Team have also served in Hungary and abroad, most recently in June this year at the site of a tornado in the Czech Republic.
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