Angus must be prepared for attack, says 999 chief

Scottish Ambulance boss warns rural areas should be ready to respond to any act of terrorism just as quickly as major cities

Less densely populated areas must be just as vigilant against terrorist attacks as anywhere else in Scotland, according to a Scottish Ambulance Service chief.

Jim Dickie, head of the Scottish Ambulance Service’s Specialist Operations Response Team (SORT), said incorporating Tayside in recent major terrorism response exercise Op Border Reiver was part of a “stress test” on the emergency services’ capability.

The exercise, not in response to any specific threat, was designed to ensure specialist and local crews are able to respond as quickly and efficiently as possible in the event of a wide range of emergency situations.

Forfar was the centre of local operation for the mock emergency exercise between October 3 and 5, with other sessions held across east and central Scotland and Northumbria.

Mr Dickie said dealing with “multisited” terrorist attacks is a crucial element of specialist training, meaning the unit needs to be able to quickly reach every area in Scotland.

He said: “Part of our thinking to carry out part of the operation in Forfar was that you can never tell how these individuals (terrorists) operate.

“We wanted to stress test this. We thought ‘let’s not just make it in Edinburgh or Glasgow’.

“If a terrorist decides to launch an attack on somewhere they think we wouldn’t have resources then we need to be prepared for that.

“Multi-sited attacks appear to be the modus operandi of terrorists so we are trying to mitigate this threat.

“In our scenario as part of Op Border Reiver, the initial incident was in Edinburgh. We then started to move specialist SORT paramedics based in the north further down the country.

“We then simulated another incident in Forfar so we had to deal with two incidents at the same time. What we also wanted to do was to make sure local crews were involved in the exercise too.

“At Forfar we didn’t just have specialist teams, we also had a number of local ambulance crews and ambulance control teams involved.”

jkeith@thecourier.co.uk

Service crews are trained to be ready for any possible incident.