Seventeen participants from four partner agencies learnt how to identify and recover disaster victims during a special training programme in Montserrat.
The Royal Montserrat Police Service hosted the four-day ‘Disaster Victim Identification and Recovery Course’ which was taught by visiting experts.
It took place at the Disaster Management Coordination Agency’s conference room from 19 to 22 August, according to a police Facebook post on 7 September.
The agencies taking part were the Royal Montserrat Police Service, Royal Montserrat Defence Force (RMDF), the Disaster Management Coordination Agency and the Montserrat Red Cross.
RMDF’s Lieutenant Colonel Alvin Ryan said: “This training is an essential one that no one wants to thinks about as it mean[s] that we would have lost a number of our citizens suddenly and tragically.
“However, having persons trained in this area would allow the families and the community on a whole to cope and get through this situation a bit better than if the training was not done.”
At the end of the training all 17 participants fully understood the roles and responsibilities required to effectively recover, identify and handle victims of multiple or mass fatality incidents, the post said.
They are now all better suited in delivering high quality service to the Montserrat community, it added.
Lecturers included Jonathan Marsden, National Coordinator for Disaster Victim Identification, and Lynzi Lefort, deputy national coordinator for the UK National Disaster Victim Identification Unit.
