When a 112 caller reports smoke coming from the fifth floor of an apartment building in Luxembourg City, the emergency operators jump into action. “That’s a level 3 incident,” said Jérôme Gloden, the head of the 112 center.
The Grand Ducal Fire and Rescue Corps (CGDIS) was created in 2018, streamlining the country’s fire fighters, ambulances and regional offices into one team. The emergency switchboard is located in an unassuming building at the Cloche d’Or, sandwiched between car dealerships and office blocks.
Every call made to 112--an average of 800 per day--arrives at the switchboard, which is a hive of activity. “In the aftermath of the tornado last year, it was 1,600 calls in just one hour,” said Gloden. The response time was around 20 seconds at the time. On a normal day, it is somewhere around 7 seconds--the equivalent of letting the phone ring three times.
The incident reported in Luxembourg City turns out to be located in a narrow street. Gloden looks worried. A large fire truck with a ladder to reach the fifth floor could have trouble accessing the site.
Multiple vehicles are put on alert by the switchboard operators. It’s around 11 o’clock in the morning, and the team doesn’t know how many people could be at risk in the apartment building.
Within minutes, an ambulance is the first rescue vehicle to reach the site. They assess the situation and give the all-clear. There is no immediate danger. Some food had been left on the stove generating a lot of smoke.
Eyes on the ground
“We are blind,” said Sandra Bettendorf, one of ten supervisors who oversee the switchboard operators. The team relies on accurate information. The caller is their eyes on the ground. The operators are trained to ask the right questions to get as much detail as possible. But they cannot think of all eventualities.
“A caller in the middle of the night reported a person lying in the street,” Bettendorf recalled. The woman didn’t dare get out of the vehicle to check whether the person was okay. She stayed on the scene until an ambulance arrived. The person turned out to be a suicide victim, but the caller had never mentioned she was parked under a bridge, Bettendorf said.
It takes six months of training to become a switchboard operator, but experience gained on the job is invaluable. Around three-quarters of calls aren’t immediate emergencies. Even a silent call can turn out to be important though.
“I could only hear this noise, like a groan,” Bettendorf said about another call she remembers vividly. Based on the location the call came in from, she contacted the local emergency station, of which there are 100 across the country. They knew of an elderly man who had previously needed emergency care. An ambulance dispatched to his home found him in urgent need of medical assistance. Bettendorf’s instinct that this wasn’t a prank call turned out to be right.
To account for Luxembourg’s diverse population, all operators must speak Luxembourgish, French, German and at least basic English. Around 50% of incoming calls are in Luxembourgish mirroring the 52% of the population who hold a Luxembourg passport.
Volunteers in the emergency services must speak Luxembourgish though. Trainees can be as young as 16 when they join the youth fire brigade. Around 4,000 volunteers are active in the CGDIS, helping in nearly all areas as firefighters, ambulance drivers and assistants, and frogmen. They also help provide psychological care to people involved in an emergency, including victims and their families, bystanders but also members of the CGDIS who often witness traumatic scenes while on the job.
Digital advances
The reorganisation of the CGDIS two years ago means that rescue vehicles can operate across communes. They also don’t stop at the borders to countries in the greater region in case of emergency.
The last piece of the reform puzzle will fall into place next year when the new National Fire and Rescue Centre in Gasperich will be fully operational. It will bring together the 112 switchboard, administrative offices, a training centre, and the fire brigade and ambulance services currently located on Route d’Arlon.
Digital advances will also help make the job of the 112 responders easier. The switchboard currently doesn’t automatically receive the location of callers even though this is the case in other EU countries like Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Ireland and Lithuania. Implementing Advance Mobile Location in Luxembourg is pending updates to data protection legislation, said Gloden.
As an interim solution, the CGDIS is working on sending out a link to the caller’s mobile phone, which transmits location data when clicked. This will help, for example, when an accident occurs in a forest or when a child calls that is too young to say where they are.
The move to the new HQ in Gasperich will also include the CGDIS situation room, from where the emergency services manage disasters, such as the 2019 tornado. The team has 300 emergency scenarios ready to roll out, covering anything from a plane crash to a nuclear incident at the Cattenom power plant but also more mundane matters, such as outdoor events like the Braderie.
The coronavirus pandemic presented new challenges to the team. Every caller reporting a health emergency is now routinely asked if they recently tested positive for coronavirus, are quarantined or showing any tell-tale symptoms, such as a fever and cough.
The cleaning protocol for ambulances--and the protective gear worn by ambulance staff--has been updated to include the transport of positive patients or suspected cases. “But if we were to go into that in detail,” Gloden said during the site visit, “we’d be here another two hours.”
This article was originally published in the October/November 2020 issue of Delano Magazine