# Road accident

> Stop safely past the scene, hazard lights on, high-visibility vest before you step out, warning triangle well back.

At a crash site the traffic is the biggest threat, more helpers are hit by passing cars than hurt by anything else. Thirty seconds spent making the scene visible protect you, the casualties and everyone arriving behind you.

## Step by step
1. Park behind the scene if possible, hazards on, vest on before leaving the car. Place the triangle far back, on a motorway around 100 metres or more, before a bend or crest.
2. Look before you act: leaking fuel, smoke, traffic, a live cable, a loose load. Switch off crashed cars' ignition if you can reach it.
3. Call 112 with the location, number of vehicles, number of injured, and whether anyone is trapped, unconscious or the road is blocked.
4. Speak to every casualty. Whoever answers, breathes and is not bleeding heavily can wait. Whoever does not answer gets you first.
5. An unconscious person in a car: tilt the head back carefully where they sit to open the airway. Move them out only for absent breathing, fire or water, then CPR on the ground.
6. Stop heavy bleeding with direct pressure, cover wounds, and keep casualties warm and still. A conscious motorcyclist keeps the helmet on.
7. Nobody walks around: keep the uninjured behind the barrier or off the road, and send someone to wave the emergency services in.

## Never do this
- Never pull people out of vehicles just because it looks wrong. Extraction is for absent breathing, fire or sinking, otherwise the spine waits for professionals.
- Never remove a motorcyclist's helmet if they are conscious, and if you must for CPR, it is a careful two-person job.
- Never stand between two vehicles or on the traffic side of the wreck, and never let anyone smoke near spilt fuel.

## Call emergency services if
- Any crash with injury, anyone trapped, unconscious or complaining of neck or back pain.
- Fuel leaking, smoke, a lorry with hazard plates, or a blocked road.
- Any hit pedestrian, cyclist or motorcyclist, even one who says they are fine and wants to leave.

## Emergency numbers
112 - Single European emergency number

## Common questions
### Am I required to stop and help?
In most of Europe yes, failing to give aid within your abilities at an accident is a criminal offence. What is asked of you is what anyone can do: secure the scene, call 112, press on bleeding. Nobody expects you to be a paramedic.

### The car might explode, should I not pull everyone out?
Film explosions are fiction, fuel fires are real but visible: smoke and flames. No fire means the greater danger to a casualty with a spinal injury is usually you moving them. Fire changes everything, then you extract fast and roughly, alive beats perfect.

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Use at your own risk. Educational and research use only, not medical advice. Verify numbers and rules for the country you are in. They change.
Source: https://emergency-cards.com/en/road-accident/
Reviewed: 2026-07-26