Heidari, M.

Jafari, H.

Sheikhi, R.A.

eprints Iran University of Medical Sciences

LETTER TO THE EDITORBystanders: Plasco Building Collapse in Iran, 2017Mohammad Heidari, PhD; Rahim Ali Sheikhi, PhD; and Hamid Jafari, PhDAfter an incident, bystanders are usually thefirst people to arrive at the scene,1,2 and forvarious reasons they gather around it. Thepresence and interventions of the people at the sceneof the event have different effects on relief andassistance to the victims. Sometimes they act asfacilitators (calling relief agencies, helping the vic-tims, and helping relief forces) and sometimes they actas a barrier (unnecessary gathering at the scene of anincident can prevent immediate relief and lead to anew crash).1,3-5The iconic 17-story Plasco building, the first symbol ofmodernity in Tehran, caught fire on January 19, 2017at approximately 7:58 AM local time (4:30 GMT).Despite all the efforts made by firefighters for over3 hours, finally at around 11:20 AM the building suf-fered a total vertical collapse (Figure 1).From the first minute of collapse, despite traffic bansby the police, some citizens insisted on gathering atthe site. The police repeatedly urged people to refrainfrom gathering at the Plasco building. According torescuers, the crowds surrounding the Plasco buildingdisrupted rescue operations and put the bystandersthemselves in danger. The unreasonable presence ofpeople who had gathered to watch the accident at thePlasco building slowed down the evacuation processand put the lives of firefighters in danger.On the day of the incident, other than police officers,relief workers, and journalists, most of the people atthe scene had come to satisfy their curiosity and takephotos and videos. In the early hours of the event, ashort video was broadcast on social networks thatshowed the ambulance caught in the crowd, its driverasking people to open the road (Figures 2 and 3). Thisincident was a clear example of unnecessary gatheringand preventing the timely action (critical time) ofrelief teams.In general, bystanders are people who attend a sceneafter an accident. Usually these people have noknowledge about disaster relief and aid to victims andhave not been trained. The accumulation of by-standers can prevent rapid relief and desirable aid tovictims. Sometimes attendance at the accident scenenot only does not help, but also may cause a cascadeof events that brings harm to the bystanders andothers.6,7FIGURE 1View of Plasco Building Collapse Scene.Copyright © 2019 Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc. DOI: 10.1017/dmp.2018.69652 Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness VOL. 13/NO. 4https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/1 . 017/dmp.2018.69Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Rowecom France ( Iran University of Medical Sciences), on 19 Oct 2020 at 10:09:18, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available atCultural beliefs and values play an important role in thepresence and intervention of people at the scene of events. Ina study conducted by Khorasani et al, in the cultural contextof Iran, factors such as willingness to help, humanitarianassistance, individual curiosity, excitement, and disorganizedcooperation lead to a crowded crash scene and poorcoordination.1An approach proposed by the World Health Organization toreduce deaths and injuries caused by accidents is to trainFIGURE 2View of Bystanders in Plasco Building Collapse Scene (photo 1).FIGURE 3View of Bystanders in Plasco Building Collapse Scene (photo 2).653Disaster Medicine and Public Health PreparednessBystanders at Plasco Buildinghttps://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/dmp.2018.69Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Rowecom France ( Iran University of Medical Sciences), on 19 Oct 2020 at 10:09:18, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available atbystanders and upgrade them to first responders. This can be astrategic and important factor in reducing mortality andcomplications from accidents.8-11In developed countries, educating people at the communitylevel about how to deal correctly with scenes of incidents andinjuries is implemented as a comprehensive program. Forexample, according to programs developed in the UnitedStates, every year 6% of the total population of the countryshould be trained.12It is a fact that in most cases bystanders arrive at the scene of anincident before relief agencies do, and time is a very importantfactor in helping victims and reducing deaths and injuries.Therefore, attention to community education and upgradingbystanders to first responders as much as possible, especially inmiddle- and lower-middle-income countries, can have a sig-nificant role in reducing the complication of accidents.This incident showed that community risk perception in variousevents is low. As stated in the Sendi framework (2015-2030),13actions must be taken to promote national strategies tostrengthen public education and awareness of disaster and eventrisk reduction. These strategies can disseminate disaster riskinformation and knowledge through campaigns, social media,and community mobilization and can enhance collaborationamong people at the local level to disseminate disaster and eventrisk information through the involvement of community-basedorganizations and nongovernmental organizations. Also, specialmass media can increase risk perception in the community withactions such as educating and informing people about how todeal with events, what should and should not be done on thescene of an incident, how to help injured people, and how tointeract with relief forces.About the AuthorsDepartment of Medical and Surgical, School of Nursing and Midwifery,Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences, Shahrekord, Iran (Dr Heidari);Department of Health in Emergency and Disaster, School of Health Managementand Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran (DrHeidari and Mr Jafari); Health Management and Economics Research Center,Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran (Dr Sheikhi).Correspondence and reprint requests to Rahim Ali Sheikhi, School of HealthManagement and Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, No6, Rashid Yasemi Street, Vali-e-asr Avenue, Tehran, Iran. P.code: 1995614111(e-mail: rahim.shaykhi94@gmail.com).REFERENCES1. Khorasani-Zavareh D, Khankeh HR, Mohammadi R, et al. Post-crashmanagement of road traffic injury victims in Iran: stakeholders’ viewson current barriers and potential facilitators. BMC Emerg Med. 2009;9(1):8.2. Pelinka LE, Thierbach AR, Reuter S, et al. Bystander trauma care-effectof the level of training. Resuscitation. 2004;61(3):289-296.3. Haghparast-Bidgoli H, Hasselberg M, Khankeh H, et al. Barriers andfacilitators to provide effective pre-hospital trauma care for road trafficinjury victims in Iran: a grounded theory approach. BMC Emerg Med.2010;10(1):20.4. Alinia S, Khankeh H, Maddah SS, et al. Barriers of pre-hospital servicesin road traffic injuries in Tehran: the viewpoint of service providers. Int JCommunity Based Nurs Midwifery. 2015;3(4):272-282.5. Tannvik T, Bakke H, Wisborg T. A systematic literature review on firstaid provided by laypeople to trauma victims. Acta AnaesthesiologicaScandinavica. 2012;56(10):1222-1227.6. Koenig KL. Koenig and Schultz’s Disaster Medicine: ComprehensivePrinciples and Practices. New York: Cambridge University Press; 2010.7. Malta Hansen C, Kragholm K, Pearson DA, et al. Association ofbystander and first-responder intervention with survival after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in North Carolina, 2010-2013. JAMA.2015;314(3):255-264.8. Arbon P, Hayes J, Woodman R. First aid and harm minimization forvictims of road trauma: a population study. Prehos Disaster Med.2011;26(4):276-282.9. Tiska M, Adu-Ampofo M, Boakye G, et al. A model of prehospitaltrauma training for lay persons devised in Africa. Emerg Med J.2004;21(2):237-239.10. Mock C, Quansah R, Krishnan R, et al. Strengthening the preventionand care of injuries worldwide. Lancet. 2004;363(9427):2172-2179.11. Callese TE, Richards CT, Shaw P, et al. Layperson trauma training inlow- and middle-income countries: a review. J Surg Res.2014;190(1):104-110.12. Anderson ML, Cox M, Al-Khatib SM, et al. Rates of cardiopulmonaryresuscitation training in the United States. JAMA Intern Med.2014;174(2):194-201.13. United Nations Internationa Strategy for Disaster Reduction . SendaiFramework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. https://www.unisdr.org/we/coordinate/sendai-framework. Published 2015. Accessed July 2, 2018.654 Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness VOL. 13/NO. 4Bystanders at Plasco Buildinghttps://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/dmp.2018.69Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Rowecom France ( Iran University of Medical Sciences), on 19 Oct 2020 at 10:09:18, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at

Bystanders: Plasco Building Collapse in Iran, 2017

http://eprints.iums.ac.ir/15243/1/Bystanders-Plasco-Building-Collapse-in-Iran-20172019Disaster-Medicine-and-Public-Health-Preparedness.pdf

Bystanders: Plasco Building Collapse in Iran, 2017

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

eprints Iran University of Medical Sciences