2 Photos
During the ongoing pandemic, hiking in the countryside has become a popular pastime for members of the public. However, calls for help from casualties came hard on the heels of the new trend. Spotting the upsurge in accidents, officers from the Police Public Relations Branch (PPRB) decided to produce a series of videos, to help raise public awareness of the importance of safety when engaging in countryside activities. Venturing into far-flung corners of the city, colleagues from the Social Media Communication (SMC) Division of PPRB shadowed Marine Police and Rural Patrol Unit officers as well as officers from the Government Flying Service (GFS) on rescue missions, to provide a rare glimpse of these emergency services officers at work.
Undaunted by the laborious task to film different rescue missions, SMC officers not only closely followed different departments carrying out marine, terrestrial and aerial rescue operations, but were also in constant communication with various command and control centres, weekend after weekend. As soon as a call for help was received from country park visitors, the filming crew would spring into action to join the frontline teams, in the hope of arriving at the scene of the accident in the shortest possible time and filming the whole rescue process.
On one occasion, the SMC filming crew boarded a GFS helicopter to capture a bird’s-eye view of a joint rescue operation mounted by officers from the Marine Police, Fire Services Department and GFS to rescue a rock climber who had broken his leg from a fall on Tung Lung Island. The filming crew witnessed how the casualty with suspected bone fractures was first lifted from the bottom of a cliff, then placed on a stretcher suspended from the helicopter that eventually sent him to hospital for treatment.
The process of filming each rescue mission was fraught with difficulties. For example, the SMC filming crew would follow GFS officers to attend to multiple service calls within a single day; or inch their way through slippery and grassy paths while climbing a 300-metre-high mountain in the scorching heat to rescue a hiker suffering heatstroke. Although those were all challenging expeditions, the processes brought the filming crew sheer joy and contentment.
By filming bona fide rescue missions and publicising them on the Force’s social media platforms, PPRB wished to reinforce the “safety first” concept among enthusiasts of countryside activities. Besides, the videos also served to help the public understand the hard work entailed in the rescue operations conducted by officers from the Police as well as other emergency services agencies, in order to accentuate the positive image upheld by them — “coming to your rescue anytime and anywhere”.
Please visit the following link to watch the videos of the “Coming to Your Rescue by Sea, Land and Air” series（https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=612830062689796）.
