Pretoria - With the era of electric cars fast approaching, Audi South Africa and the National Disaster Management Centre have taken the lead in securing the country’s first line of help.
This was done through a collaborative effort that saw 70 first-line responders getting basic training in how to handle emergency situations involving fully electric vehicles.
Sascha Sauer, head of Audi SA, said when the company began the journey of launching electric vehicles (EVs) for the first time in the country, they were concerned about training and educating not only themselves, as little was known about EVs, but also expanding the knowledge to their dealers.
Sauer said in discussing the product further, they realised that they could not stop at the retail level in their organisation only, but needed to also identify other stakeholders, particularly the first responders who would be attending to accident scenes.
“We ended up asking ourselves questions as to who would keep our first responders safe in the event that they have to attend to someone who has been involved in an accident with these cars.
“We know that an electric vehicle car needs special attention and unique knowledge about how to operate such a car safely, so we contacted the National Disaster Management Centre, only to find that no one has offered to train them in the past 10 years of the car’s introduction into the market.”
Sauer said that following the discussions, the company agreed to take over the training costs for 70 members who they had trained over the past couple of years at their training centre.
“We believe this will contribute to safety and security on roads for the first responders, and also for the benefit of our customers in case of them being in an accident.”
Jappie Lengoabala, acting director for fire services at the National Disaster Management Centre, said the collaboration with Audi SA was crucial in that it armed the members with information that would prevent any secondary injuries to themselves and the patients when dealing with such vehicles on the road.
Lengoabala said the beauty of the initiative’s reach was that they were able to train members even in the furthest areas and smallest municipalities who would normally not be able to afford the course by themselves.
“This collaboration will allow us to have access to a model that can be taken further to emergency services throughout the country and ensure that anyone who has a role to play as a first responder knows what to do.”
Lengoabala said having the knowledge of the unique features of the cars was crucial given that there were occasions where members were injured by even standard features, such as airbags deploying while members were attending to patients.
“When someone’s life is at risk, the adrenalin pushes you and some of the stuff may be overlooked, but through this, we are preparing our members to know the standard operating procedures before they even begin working.
“We want to make sure when they attend to patients in these cars they don’t go there thinking they will simply extricate the patient as with any other car. We know how to operate the petrol heads with our eyes closed, but electricity requires a different tactic, hence the significance of this.”
Maria Mazibuko, a member of the Johannesburg Emergency Services, called in for the training course this week, said the members appreciated the initiative by Audi SA as they had only been afforded training with hybrid models.
Mazibuko said the efforts to familiarise members with the fully electric vehicles were extremely helpful.
“Being knowledgeable about the safety aspects of the car enables us to be cautious and know where to cut, where not to cut, and what to expect from which side of the vehicle.”
Mazibuko said many things could go wrong at a scene and their concern was primarily about navigating the car’s wires or cylinders and preventing further injuries.
Pretoria News