A KID while crossing the road at Whitefield is knocked off by a whizzing car. Next moment he is lying at the roadside fighting for his life. After a while, a hospital ambulance arrives at the scene from Shivajinagar only to find him dead. Like this kid, there are approximately 50,000 people dying without even getting a pre-medical treatment in Bengaluru. This happens because there are inadequate numbers of ambulances owned by city hospitals and deployed at vantage points.

Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI) is here to redefine the concept of providing emergency medical services in Bengaluru, in particular and Karnataka at large. The ’Arogya Kavacha-108’ medical, police and fire services, was launched by former President A P J Abdul Kalam in Bengaluru last week. The service is a public-private initiative.

Accident victims will get the most necessary pre-medical services at a quick pace. The caller need not wait too long for getting connected to an EMRI centre. All the calls will be answered by phone jockeys within two rings.

The 108 Emergency Response Service is a toll free number and callers can access it from their landline and mobile phones. "Once the caller dials 108 to report an emergency, the call lands at the Emergency Response Centre in Magadi Road, where at least 35 phone jockeys are working. The jockeys will collect the information regarding the kind of emergency and the location and ask for ambulance, a fire tender or police vehicle to be sent as appropriate," said EMRI chief executive officer (CEO) M Venkat Chengavalli.

EMRI chief operation officer (COO, Karnataka) Bharat Radhakrishnan said that the deployment of 32 ambulances at various vantage points of the city enables EMRI response team to reach the disaster spot in few minutes. "Likewise, we have deployed 34 more ambulances in 17 districts of Karnataka like Tumkur, Chitradurga, Davangere and Bellary, in the first phase," he said.

Karnataka chief minister BS Yediyurappa said on an average the government will deploy one ambulance for a lakh people. By next March, Karnataka hopes to increase the fleet to 110 and by 210, the service will cover the entire state with 517 ambulances in place in various districts," he announced.

Elucidating on the state-of-the-art ambulances, Radhakrishnan added that the state-of-the-art ambulances can nearly handle any emergency situation. The vans are equipped with medical equipment ranging from defibrillators and ventilators, to extrication tools.

There will be a pilot (the driver) and one emergency medical technician. The EMT will give pre-hospital care under the guidance of emergency response centre physicians, as in pregnancy cases.

Further adding, Radhakrishnan said ’Dial 108’ service has received tremendous response. In just 24-hour span since its inauguration, the service has received a whopping 20,000 calls, of which 100 were effective. Around 35 calls were related to road traffic accidents (RTA), pregnancy cases and cardiac attacks, while ten were police cases like robbery.