Spectacular rescue operation was a training exercise

The Red Cross staged a mock accident involving a coach crash on the Sa Carrotja estate, between Manacor and Porto Cristo. The scenario was a coach, with 50 passengers on board, which runs off the road and overturns, leaving the passengers trapped inside the wreckage, unable to move. The training exercise involved the rescue of victims of the crash and was co-ordinated by the Manacor fire brigade, who provided vehicles and men, the Manacor police, the Red Cross ambulance and their first aid volunteers, an air-sea-rescue helicopter which transported the victims, radio hams from Manacor and the company Autocares Nadal which provided the coach. The firemen had to free the passengers from the wreckage. To add realism to the exercise, dolls were used to represent babies. As the passengers were freed, they received first aid at the site of the accident, while they waited for the ambulances which would rush them to hospital. Radio hams also had a decisive role to play in the emergency operation. Approximately 50 professionals as well as many volunteers took part in the exercise, designed to train workers in the handling of a real emergency. It was a spectacular operation, one of several such exercises which hare held regularly throughout the year, in order to ensure that civil defence workers are properly trained in the handling of emergencies. Red Cross sources said later that everything had gone according to plan.