MADINA: The Civil Defense has said that it has designated a location for a new helicopter response unit in Madina and that work on the site will begin soon. Regional manager Ali Al-Otaibi said the helicopter air rescue and response service would help address what he admitted are occasional delays in responding to accidents in the region. “Some delays are out of our control, however,” Al-Otaibi told Okaz/Saudi Gazette. “Sometimes the report we receive can be vague, but when specific details are provided the response is swift and we arrive in a matter of minutes.” He said that the Civil Defense has placed a maximum response time of three minutes for the most remote accidents in the region. “There are carefully scheduled patrols out on the roads that check conditions and ascertain the swiftest routes to any given location, identifying side roads closed for construction works, and individual officers are given verbal tests to check they know all the features present,” he said. He said that a lot of perceived lateness in arriving at the scene of an accident or fire or any other incident was due to the stress of the public at the site. “When you're in a threatening situation such as a fast-spreading fire, one second seems like a minute, and one minute seems like an hour,” Al-Otaibi said. “That's only natural, but we find a lot of people accusing the Civil Defense of being slow to react because of that.”
