In a concerted effort to enhance road safety and improve emergency medical response in the Albertine Region, Safe Way Right Way (SWRW), in collaboration with TotalEnergies, successfully trained 70 individuals as first responders.
Multiple Studies indicate that traffic crash victims die before reaching hospital due to a lack of emergency response. Through this initiative, the partners aimed to reduce fatalities and severe injuries resulting from road crashes by creating a community-based network of trained first responders.
This capacity-building initiative was implemented across five key districts with each district contributing a set number of responders to ensure a balanced regional representation and coverage across key transportation corridors and communities with significant crash risk including Hoima (20), Kikuube (5), Pakwach (15), Nwoya (16), and Buliisa (14) identified as having a high incidence of road traffic crashes due to increasing road activity linked to oil and gas developments.
The training focused on equipping participants with vital pre-hospital care skills necessary for managing crash scenes effectively before professional medical teams arrive. This included scene assessment and safety, basic life support (BLS) techniques, airway management, bleeding control, fracture immobilization, and casualty transport methods.
The program prioritized community members who are most likely to be first on the scene of a road crash, including Boda-boda riders and LC1 chairpersons as its targeted approach to build a grassroots safety network capable of saving lives in the critical minutes after a crash.
This training marks an important step toward long-term improvements in road crash outcomes and sets a precedent for other regions facing similar challenges. As the trained first responders returned to their communities, they carried with them the knowledge and tools to turn bystanders into first-line lifesavers and lay the groundwork for safer roads, making a tangible difference one life at a time.