Emergency Cards EN

International

Road accident

Reviewed

Use at your own risk. For education and research only. Not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in, because they change. Before you rely on these cards, ask a medical professional or a fire safety specialist to review them. Disclaimer

Do this first

Stop safely past the scene with hazard lights on. Put on a high-visibility vest before you step out, and place the 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 protects you, the casualties and everyone arriving behind you.

Step by step

  1. Park behind the scene if possible, with hazards on, and put your 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 the ignition of crashed cars if you can reach it.
  3. Call 112 with the location, the number of vehicles, the number of injured, and whether anyone is trapped or unconscious or the road is blocked.
  4. Speak to every casualty. Anyone who answers, breathes and is not bleeding heavily can wait. Anyone who does not answer gets your attention first.
  5. An unconscious person in a car: tilt the head back carefully where they sit to open the airway. Move them out only if breathing is absent or there is fire or water, then start 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 conscious motorcyclist's helmet. If you must remove one 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.

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 and press on bleeding. Nobody expects you to be a paramedic.

The car might explode, should I not pull everyone out?

Explosions like those in films are fiction. Fuel fires are real but visible, with smoke and flames. If there is no fire, the greater danger to a casualty with a spinal injury is usually you moving them. If there is fire, everything changes. Then you extract fast and roughly, because alive beats perfect.

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Sources and standards

Use at your own risk. For education and research only. Not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in, because they change. Before you rely on these cards, ask a medical professional or a fire safety specialist to review them.