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General advice about what to do in an emergency

In a real life emergency, knowing a few safety tips will help you to stay calm and help yourself and others. Remember not to put yourself in danger and to alert the emergency services as soon as possible. School planning will take care of your children's safety in an emergency.

Go in, stay in, tune in

In a major emergency, if you are not involved in the incident, but are close by or believe you may be in danger, the best advice is to go inside a safe building, stay inside until you are advised to do otherwise, and tune in to local radio or TV for information.

Of course, there are always going to be particular occasions when you should not 'go in', for example if there is a fire, or if you are advised differently by the emergency services or your own common sense.

If you find yourself in the middle of an emergency, your common sense and instincts will usually tell you what to do. However, it is important to:

  • make sure 999 has been called if people are injured or if there is a threat to life
  • not put yourself or others in danger
  • follow the advice of the emergency services
  • try to remain calm and think before acting, and try to reassure others
  • check for injuries - remember to help yourself before attempting to help others

If you are not involved in the incident, but are close by or believe you may be in danger, in most cases the advice is:

  • go inside a safe building
  • stay inside until you are advised to do otherwise
  • tune in to local radio or TV for more information

Chemical, biological or radiological (CBR) incident

In all of these situations - keep calm, think before you act and listen to the advice of the emergency services. If there is a CBR incident:

  • move away from the immediate source of danger
  • wait for the emergency services to arrive and examine you and, if necessary, decontaminate you

The Fire and Rescue Service has been equipped in recent years to decontaminate large numbers of people quickly, if considered necessary by the Ambulance Service. This usually involves:

  • showering with soap and water
  • dressing in temporary clothing

It is important that this takes place where the incident happened so that other areas, including homes, are not contaminated. If necessary you will also be assessed by health service personnel. If you go home untreated you could contaminate others and make any incident worse.

Schools

If your children are at school you will naturally want to collect them as soon as possible in the event of a major emergency. But it may not be safe to do so. Please tune in to your local radio station for advice and for details of the arrangements for letting parents know when to collect their children from school.

All schools have plans to cope with local emergencies such as fire and flood, and teachers and support staff do all they can to look after the pupils in their charge.

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