Heroic feats of our highway patrolmen

WE often take things for granted when it doesn’t involve us. And sometimes even when it does.

I have been part of a medical team that attends to road traffic accident victims for nearly ten years yet I still drive up and down the North-South Expressway (PLUS) without much thought to the fact that nearly a thousand people die on these roads each year.

In my mind, accident victims somehow show up in an emergency room with a team of professionals around them doing heart massage, transfusing blood and the like.

All that is work, and who wants to think of work while on holiday, right? Unfortunately, that is what happened when my wife and I were driving from KL to Penang some time ago. Thankfully, we didn’t get hurt, but when our front tyre blew out at high speed somewhere near the Ipoh exit, we narrowly escaped being smashed to bits by oncoming traffic.

We found ourselves on the emergency lane, praying and placing desperate phone calls asking for help. My father suggested calling the PLUS patrol team, so we did. Within minutes, a battered pick-up truck with flashing lights showed up in the rear-view mirror. Two helpful gentlemen – Mr K and Mr R – hopped down, helped remove our mangled tyre and took us to a nearby workshop to have a new tyre fitted.

On the ride to the workshop, we chatted with the highway patrolmen who – after telling us to always ensure the patrol vehicle coming to our aid is legitimate – told us of experiences that made even this seasoned stomach churn.

Take the case of the man who refused to move his car when it collided with the divider near Ipoh. The patrolmen tried to persuade him to move his car into the emergency lane, but no, he had called up his police chief friend who was on his way. “Don’t touch my car,” he shouted. “The investigating officer is on his way.” The patrolmen had no choice but to just place some safety cones around his car and wait.

Ten minutes later, the police investigator arrived on the scene. Fifteen minutes later, a trailer did the same – smashing into the car, the police investigator and other vehicles.

“Six people died unnecessarily that day, and that poor policeman is now paralysed,” said Mr R.

Then there’s the case of the youngsters we call ‘Mat Rempit’ that flood the highways around Ipoh at about two in the morning on Fridays and weekends. Imagine a group of youths riding on the dark tarmac, rearing their bikes up like stallions and doing what we all know as the ‘superman stunt’ while their friends whoop and cheer. The atmosphere might even be carnival-like, were it not for the fact that it ends with three of the bikes jammed under a passing car in a pool of blood and oil – torn parts of the riders’ bodies strewn all over the road.

Once there was a young girlfriend of someone in a ‘rempit’ gang. The bike she was on skidded and she fell off. The whole gang sped off leaving this girl and one twisted motorcycle on the road.

“My friend had to cordon off the area so other vehicles wouldn’t create a pile-up, and I called the ambulance. I’ve learned first aid, CPR and all that so I tried my best to stop the bleeding, but by the time the ambulance got there about 45 minutes later she was dead,” said Mr K.

Being part of a trauma centre myself, this concerns me. How is it that a medical team took so long to reach a victim of a highway accident?

The highway patrolmen, in small teams are in charge of a section of highway several kilometres long. They look after breakdowns, traffic accidents, objects lying on the road and countless other things.

On top of that they are expected to function as paramedics in the event of an injury. The lives of millions of highway users are entrusted to these brave men and they do all that they can to save them.

Mind you, many of these injuries would be challenging for even medics in a world class trauma centre, so a better system has got to be put in place.

It seems that my concern isn’t a new one. Public hospital ambulances are already overloaded to the point that they cannot focus solely on highway accidents. Because of this, some years ago a suggestion was made to have one dedicated ambulance and two paramedics stationed at regular intervals along PLUS, but it never materialised.

Instead the overworked and understaffed highway patrolmen got a two-hour first aid course.

Two hours of first aid training. That’s all that stands between the thousands of highway accident victims, between all of us who use the highway and the crossroads between life and death.

I write this not to put the blame for this huge risk on anyone, but to bring this matter to the attention of all of us who use the highways in our country, including those in a position to make changes in the way this system works.

But more than that, I write to bring to light the good work of the brave men on the highway patrol and the dangers and challenges they face to help keep us safe.

Mr R and Mr K gave this advice to all PLUS users: drive safe, follow the rules, but if something happens, pray to God, know who to call – and follow the instructions of the highway patrolman. You never know, it may one day save your life.

DR PUTRA PV Kuala Lumpur