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Police Casualty Bureau

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Old Boy

master brummie
Hi All,
When a major incident occurs an emergency telephone number is broadcast so that anyone requiring information about a particular person can ring and ask for it. It so happens that at the time of the Birmingham bombs the number was given out and we opened up what is called The Casualty
Bureau in Lloyd House and the calls were directed there. The control room, where I was, was well staffed and I went to the bureau as deputy to the superintendent in charge.
The system was that a police officer went to the A&E Dept of each local hospital and each casualty brought in he/she passed details to the bureau, including description and clothing etc if the casualty could not be named. In theory a list was developed of all casuaties.
Very soon calls started flooding in and it was very obvious that most of them had no real connection to the incident at all. For instance we had a call from New Zealand saying that her daughter was a student at Birmingham University and was she involved. Her daughter was most probably safe asleep in bed. However the value of such calls coming to the bureau meant that the 999 system was left clear to deal with the many calls coming respecting other incidents.
Afterwards a debriefing revealed that really a dedicated room needed to be set up and this was done. One need was for carpeting as the noise of many shoes on the wooden floor plus the ringing of telephones meant that the operators had difficulty when taking the calls.
Shortly after the new bureau was made ready an exercise was made. The below photo shows it with myself and the civilian staff who turned out and did a wonderful job on the night of the bombings.
Chris Beresford (Old Boy)
 

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Thanks for your post Chris.
As well as the Police we should all acknowledge the work done by the Fire service, Ambulance crews, Doctors, Nurses and Taxi drivers on dreadful night.
A sad piece of Birmingham history.Alberta
 
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