Northern Emirates to get six helipads for air ambulances

The move is the first phase of plans to install stations across the country to reduce road deaths

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, February 9, 2014:      Emergency crews evacuate a motorist by helicopter after a vehcile went off the road northbound along the Dubai - Al Ain road, Highway 66 near exit 65, during heavy rain on February 9, 2014. Christopher Pike / The National

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Six stations providing emergence services will be launched as a first phase of a project aimed at bringing down road fatalities in the country.
Each station will include a helipad and a joint centre, with teams from the Air Wing, Ambulance and Civil Defence, said Ahmad Al Hamadai, director of roads department at the Ministry of Infrastructure Development. 
The stations, he said, aim to reduce road mortality rates, response time to accidents on main roads as well as boost traffic safety.
The Ministry of Infrastructure Development, in cooperation with the Ministry of the Interior, conducted a study to determine the best locations for rolling out of the first phase of the emergency stations and the northern areas of the country were chosen.
"The civil defence and paramedic teams in the stations will respond to emergencies or traffic accidents nearby and if support was needed from the Air Wing, a helicopter will carry the injured to the nearest hospital," said Al Hamdai.

A date for the launch was not revealed yet.

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Although traffic accidents are one of the biggest killers in the UAE, a federal traffic law that was amended last year aimed to reduce traffic casualties from about 6 per 100,000 people to 3 per 100,000 as per Vision 2021.
Brig Ali Al Dhaheri, director of Abu Dhabi Police's central operations sector, said that the number of people killed in road accidents in the capital last year fell by about a third, with 199 deaths down from 289 in 2016.