The disaster management plan: put to the test by the accident

Chingola sits at the intersection of the routes that lead to the new mining areas: The T3 to Chililabombwe the T5 to Solwezi and the T4 from Kitwe. These roads have, become very busy. The result is that road traffic accidents on these roads have become common place, thus a mass casualty incident is in waiting at all times. On 6th October 2007, two fully loaded mini buses coming from Kitwe going to Chingola and Chililabombwe respectively got involved with three heavy duty trucks. All the vehicles were said to have been traveling at high speeds. A confirmed multiple casualty incident of more than10 victims was observed and as a rule a Type I Alert was put in motion. This called for the activation of the full disaster plan. So Operation Actual Accident (AA) was activated. The first action was the mobilization of the medical staff followed by the mobilization of administration staff. There were fourteen victims who died on the scene of the accident, two died on arrival at Nchanga south hospital, the total number of the dead was 19(31%). The living victims were Triaged and were distributed to the health institutions in Chingola and Chililabomwe. The Triaged patient were put into Priority I , II and III patients. Of the Priority I patients, three died; two had injuries which were extensive and were not compatible with survival one died of thrombo-embolic phenomenon on the third day.