An extreme traffic accidents happened on the 21 of november, south of Falkenberg in Sweden. A tank-lorry with hazard material crashed trough the safety barrier on a bridge. The hazard material started to leak and eventually exploded. By-standers used their mobilephone to document the enormous blaze. Media reported from the accident location but used mainly the mobilephone videos to show the scale of the accident.
The by-standers mobilephone videos and photos could potentially be very valuable for the rescue services to learn from the accident but also, perhaps more importantly, take part of the ongoing situation while being dispatch to the location.
Currently, their are not systems or procedures that allow by-standers to assist the rescue services to know more about the conditions on the accident-site before they physically arrive to the location. A reflection here is that if “common people” can document the situation and send the videos or photos to their friends, why can they not send the same material to the rescue services. The problem is to my understanding not a technical issue but rather an organisational challenge.