Emergency services struggle to cope with Cumbria massacre

03/06/2010

Emergency services in Cumbria have been stretched to their operational limits as they were forced to deal with more murders in one day than they usually have to cope with in a year.

The county’s police force, which presides over one of the safest, crime free rural communities in the country, had around 400 officers on duty – including around 30 firearms officers – when Derrick Bird went on the rampage.

But by midday the force was pushed to operational capacity as calls came in from 30 separate crime scenes – 12 of which were later discovered to be murder scenes.

The small, largely rural police force called on neighbouring forces for assistance under long-standing arrangements known as “mutual aid”. Under the arrangements, neighbouring forces provide police officers, specialist teams and equipment to police services dealing with major incidents. The support includes specialist firearms teams and forensic science investigators.

Officers from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, the force that protects the Sellafield nuclear plant, near the village of Seascale on the Cumbrian coast, were also drafted in to help Cumbria police.

Stuart Hyde, the deputy chief constable of Cumbria, said: “The nature of this incident has stretched the constabulary and, thanks to the support of our colleagues at the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and neighbouring forces, we were able to respond.”

“At this stage I feel we are able to cope. Yes it’s a large investigation, it will involve a lot of people, but we are coping,” he added.

Elsewhere, eight helicopters, including one from RAF Valley in Anglesey and a Royal Navy helicopter from HMS Gannet near Prestwick, Ayrshire, took part in search-and-rescue operations.

Medical services were similarly stretched, with the north west ambulance service swamped with scores of calls and some victims of the gunman left waiting two hours.

Victims were taken to hospitals in Whitehaven and Carlisle and one person with serious head injuries was flown to a specialist unit at a hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Emergency services put a well rehearsed major incident plan into operation, calling off-duty medical and hospital staff into work. Hospitals in the region were put on standby to receive casualties as the scale of the gunman’s rampage gradually began to emerge.

GP surgeries in the area were also forced to shoulder the burden, dealing with severely wounded patients with injuries that would be more familiar to military paramedics.

Sellafield was locked down soon after reports of the shootings began. All gates to the nuclear site were closed and workers on the morning shift remained on the site while those due to start work in the afternoon were advised not to turn up for work until further notice.

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