The Good Samaritan: Integrating ordinary people into emergency response

The Good Samaritan: Integrating ordinary people into emergency response

The real first responders in a widespread destructive incident are those who are immediately on hand, including the survivors

By Joseph Scanlon

In 1942, when fire raged through the Cocoanut Grove night club in Boston, there was an urgent need for transportation of the injured and dead. Some were moved in taxis, and many were transported in newspaper delivery vans.

AP Photo/Eric Draper
An earthquake victim salvages belongings from the rubble of her home as a high rise burns out of control in downtown Kobe, Japan, January 19, 1995. The citizens directly affected by emergencies are often the real first responders.

In 1987, after a tornado tore apart large areas of Edmonton, Alberta, residents of a trailer park used their undamaged cars to take injured survivors to hospital.

In 1995, survivors of the Kobe earthquake collected the bodies of the dead and took them to temples and other public buildings.

In 1998, when Swissair 111 plunged into the Atlantic Ocean five miles offshore from Halifax International Airport in Nova Scotia, the first response was by fishing boats from nearby coastal communities.

In 2004, after the Indian Ocean tsunami struck Thailand and Sri Lanka, survivors picked up bodies and took them to hospitals, temples and morgues.

These examples illustrate the well-documented fact that the real first responders in a widespread destructive incident are those who are immediately on hand, including the survivors. Police, firefighters and EMS personnel play little, if any, role in initial response.

The impact of civilians and survivors

What is not so well documented, and is less understood, is the impact of these Good Samaritans' actions on emergency response.