You’ve seen a thousand crashes in films and on the TV and often characters in the story walk away with little more than a few scratches.

The dreadful truth is that when it happens for real, someone important to your story - your life, might not walk away – they might never walk again; they might not come out of it alive.

And when that crash happens, the impact stretches far and wide, here are just some of the people that are affected when it all goes wrong.

Police

First on scene, they have to make an assessment of what has happened, whether it is safe, which other services are needed.  When a serious incident occurs, the Police will treat what they find as the scene of a crime, it may be that one of the driver is responsible for someone’s death by their reckless driving. At least 7 officers will be needed in a fatal crash; they will be senior investigating officer, investigating officer, collision investigator, family liaison officer, coroner’s officer, traffic management, officer & exhibits officer.

Fire Service

Emergency services talk about the 'golden hour', 60 minutes from the time of the crash to get casualties out of the vehicle and into emergency care. When a vehicle is crushed and there are casualties stuck inside the fire service have a huge job to do.  It’s vital that they get the passengers out quickly and safely.  They may have to cut cars to pieces to do this and for that they might need 2 fire engines, a rescue support vehicle, up to 12 firefighters and an officer.

Ambulance Service

The goal is to get emergency treatment as soon as possible to those that need it, and that demands a lot of the ambulance service. They may typically need to dispatch a single responder by car, 3 frontline vehicles each with a 2-man crew, an officer, and possibly even a helicopter to airlift out the most seriously injured.

Hospital Staff

They are not often called to the scene, but occasionally a doctor and a senior nurse might be called out. The real demands are placed on the hospital when the casualties arrive at the emergency department.  You may well find a consultant and five other staff members working furiously to save a single patient after a serious collision.  Once the initial life saving treatment has been given, there is still the time theatre, intensive care, and rehabilitation to come if the casualty stands any chance of a normal life.