An ambulance is escorted by officers at the Jeju Autonomous Police in this photo provided by the Jeju Fire Safety Headquarters.
JEJU, Aug. 15 (Korea Bizwire) — The autonomous police forces on South Korea’s largest island of Jeju announced that it has formed a cooperative system the with Jeju Fire Safety Headquarters to secure the golden hour for ambulances transporting emergency patients, including those suffering from cardiac arrest or serious injuries.
The cooperative system will start operating in full swing from Monday.
Once the 119 General Situation Room of the fire agency sends information on patient transport to the autonomous police forces, motorcycle units will control traffic including traffic signals at intersections to ensure that the ambulances arrive at the hospital as quickly as possible.
Testing conducted early this month showed that it took about 15 minutes for general vehicles to arrive at these hospitals, but ambulances with a police escort shortened the time to less than eight minutes.
According to Jeju Fire Safety Headquarters, there were 2,886 patients suffering from cardiac arrest or with serious injuries patients who were transported by 119 emergency rescue teams from 2019 to 2021.
This year, rescue teams had transported a total of 497 patients, including 352 cardiac arrest patients and 145 seriously injured patients, as of the end of June.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
