GMFRS takes part in exercise Dark Knight

OVER the weekend firefighters, staff and volunteers took part in one of the biggest ever motorway emergency exercises on the M62.

Around 100 workers from across Greater Manchester and Cheshire’s emergency services worked alongside Highways England’s traffic officers to respond to a staged multi-casualty incident.

The exercise, known as Exercise Dark Knight, was held overnight on Saturday 10 August on the M62 near Warrington with approximately 15 members of the St Joseph’s Players amateur dramatic society in Leigh acting as casualties.

The incident involved an overturned coach, two HGVs, eight cars and a motorbike.

Deputy Chief Fire Officer, Dawn Docx expressed her sincere thanks to everyone involved with the incident: “I would like to congratulate everyone who designed, organised and participated in Exercise Dark Knight last night.

“It was one of the largest multi-agency exercises of its kind, involving multiple vehicles, over 70 causalities, 100 responders and numerous observers that closed a stretch of the M62 overnight.

“It was inspiring to see such strong inter-agency working in action. We had partners from GMP, NWAS, Highways England, St. John’s Ambulance, Bolton Mountain Rescue Team and the British Red Cross along with scores of intrepid volunteers who played the parts of the casualties.”

Exercise Direction and Station Manager Chris Evans said: “Last night’s exercise was the culmination of months of meticulous planning, all designed to ensure that should an incident of this type and scale occur on our motorway network - we can all respond as efficiently and as effectively as possible to provide the public with a first class service."

“It’s not just the obvious ‘blue light’ services of the Police, Fire and Ambulance Service involved in an emergency response to an incident such as this – it’s also the Highways Agency traffic officers and the recovery companies too who between us all play a specific role in safely managing an incident, helping to provide the best outcomes for any casualties and also to ensure that the motorway infrastructure can re-open as quickly as possible to reduce disruption to other road users."

Read more about the training exercise.

12/08/2019 14:28 PM