Livestock Transportation Emergencies Require a Team Effort

The Director of Saskatchewan Agriculture's Emergency Response and Inspection Unit says the main focus when dealing with a livestock transportation emergency is safety. "Livestock Transportation Emergencies Require a Team Effort," is the topic of Sask Pork's Spring Seminar Series slated for tomorrow afternoon.

Trent Catley, the Director of the Emergency Response and Inspection Unit, Livestock Branch for the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture, explains such an emergency will typically be reported through 911.

Clip-Trent Catley-Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture:

Almost all fire departments in Saskatchewan are dispatched by the same 911 centre so the first responders are going to be a fire department. They're there to secure the scene if it's a motor vehicle collision, rollover, fire, that sort of thing. They're there to secure the scene, stabilize the incident and to prevent the emergency from continuing. That's when their knowledge or skill set for the most part will finish.

They'll still be there to support the scene but dealing with the animals is not something they deal with or are even equipped to deal with. That's where they're going to have to call in other subject matter experts and that’s where the producers or the different associations can step up and come to the site to help support the fire department for responding and dealing with those animals that are involved in the response.

When you have all of these different parties working together, and it can be on a major highway like the Trans-Canada highway so you have a lot of other traffic going by, you need to make sure the response is coordinated so that everyone on scene can be safe. Police are going to be on scene dealing with traffic. If there's a serious incident you might have EMS on scene to deal with injuries to the people in the accident. It all needs to be coordinated so you can have an effective safe response.