Posted By john ridley
Anyone want to start a discussion thread over this?

I have recently discovered that the Fire & Rescue Services can no longer guarantee coming into a building to remove the injured/mobility impaired persons (MIP)from refuge areas. This is the responsibility of the employer.

The problem then shifts over to the appointing and training attendants/buddies from the MIP's area with the assistance of Evacuation Wardens to get the MIP's safely out of the building. The Red Cross have stated that to remove one person in a chair would require a minimum of 4 persons. Nice! thanks that'll make it easy then.

Aren't we now just facing a huge manual handling problem where we are supposed to avoid manual handling in the first place but at the least expected to train everyone who might be involved? If the MIP is also unwilling and refuses to transfer to an evacuation chair e.g simply frightened, then the attendants/wardens would not be capable of removing them in their powered chair, and even if they were, they are likely to refuse to do this on the grounds of their H&S.

I have already had one lady stating that she would be "incapable of assisting a big man" down the staircase even with the assistance of others. To be PC we also have some big lasses.

Lets face it, Evaucation Wardens are usually volunteers and to try to force them to do this is an option I am most unwilling to try and even if I did, it is only likely to result in their resignation and to be honest, I wouldn't blame them.

What are other people out there doing?

Posted By Ian Mycroft
We had a demonstration of an excellent evacuation chair. During the demonstration I was taken down a flight of stairs by a lady weighing around 8st who had been given about 2 minutes instruction. I weigh in at a dainty 16.5st.

Posted By Pedro Luís Sande Taborda Nunes de Oliveira
Hi all,

I have the same problem in a 52000 seat football stadium where the disable places are in the 2nd tier. I start to ask about this problem and a colleague of mine in a english football club told me about those chairs that some of you are mentioning.
Can any of you tell me where I can get those chairs? What is the factory name?

Thank you.

Pedro Taborda

Posted By David Waterton
Hi a hot tattie. we are having a simillar problem with an employee. we have evac chairs in place, people trained in it's use and in moving and handling. Problem we encountered recently, the lift was out and could not be repaired until the next day. The worker uses a heavy electric wheel chair around 250 -300 lbs. he requires this to access and drive a specially adapted vehicle. problem was getting the chair from the fist floor to the ground level without the lift. It took four men to move it..All of whom indicated that it was "hard" going. Problem we have is, whilst it would be a reasonable instruction to ask staff to assist with an evac chair evacuation. Would it be reasonable to ask them to carry this heavy chair down a flight of stairs. Remember we also have to take into account the disability discrimination legislation when assessing.

Posted By Ian Mycroft
the demonstration we had did go down multiflights and negotiated landings and there was no problem.

Ian

Posted By Gilly Margrave
Does this just apply to MIPs who are employees? What about members of the public? Many public buildings rely on refuges and there is no way there would be sufficient staff on hand to effect an evacuation if it meant using evac.chairs.

Gilly