United Doctors Hospital participated in the hypothetical plan implemented yesterday by the National Standing Committee for Maritime Disaster Response in order to determine the readiness to deal with maritime disasters.
The Medical Department, Nursing Department, Operations Department, Quality Department, Health Education and Information Department, and Security and Safety Department all contributed in preparing for the hospital’s participation in receiving the hypothetical patients and injured who will be received in case the port is evacuated following a mock explosion incident.
Given the geographical proximity of United Doctors Hospital to the seaport, the hospital had to…
The newspapers published the details of this news and we quote here what Okaz newspaper published in today’s issue with the following text:
Okaz : February 11, 2016
Seven planes, two marine helicopters and the training ship “Tabuk” participated in rescuing the passengers of a ship with 1437 passengers on board, which was subjected to a mock explosion in a hypothetical plan for a practical exercise carried out by the Border Guard Sector in the Makkah region entitled “Search and Rescue 37” to measure the readiness of 38 government agencies to deal with maritime disasters.
The hypothetical plan was carried out in Saudi territorial waters and consisted of an explosion in the engine room of a passenger ship, a fuel leak, and the failure of its engines in the open sea, and it ran aground after hitting the coral reefs, and recorded injuries that required declaring a state of emergency and passing the report to all concerned authorities. The Border Guard spokesman and secretary of the National Permanent Committee for Confronting Maritime Disasters in the Kingdom’s waters, Colonel Saher Al-Harbi, said that the experiment was launched under the directives of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, to develop the skills of security personnel in carrying out their tasks to maintain security and safety, pointing out that the plan includes: “Search, rescue, evacuation, firefighting, pollution control, transportation, and providing assistance to those affected,” and aims to raise the degree and level of field coordination between the participating parties, adding that the hypothesis included an explosion and fire in a passenger ship while entering Jeddah Islamic Port, after the engines failed, the fuel tank caught fire, and could not be controlled by the crew, and the incident resulted in various injuries.
The Ministry of Interior’s Security Aviation participated in transporting the injured and deceased from the ship’s deck, while the Civil Defense, Red Crescent, Customs, Jeddah Islamic Port, General Investigation and Criminal Evidence at the Jeddah Police participated in the implementation of the hypothetical plan.
The Commander of the Search and Rescue Operations Coordination Center for the Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba axis, who led the exercise, Colonel Naji bin Mansour Al-Juhani, said: “28 government agencies, 10 boats, including three long-range boats, two medium-range boats, three search and rescue boats, one Royal Saudi Navy boat, one Border Guard boat, two helicopters, the training ship Tabuk, and seven aircraft, including three belonging to the Security Aviation, two belonging to the Air Ambulance, one belonging to the Navy, and one belonging to the Royal Saudi Air Force, participated in the plan.”
The hypothetical plan was attended by the Director General of Border Guards, Major General Awwad bin Eid Al-Balawi, Director General of Security Aviation at the Ministry of Interior, Major General Mohammed Al-Harbi, and the Director of Civil Defense in Jeddah, Colonel Ghazi Al-Ghamdi.
