Over 50 miners are trapped underground after a sulphur mine collapsed in western Ukraine. At least five of the miners have suffered severe burns as a result of the accident which took place this morning at 5am, close to Yavoriv, a town near the Polish border. Dozens of people were also injured as a gas explosion in the mine, 300 metres below ground, triggered earth tremors which destroyed nearby buildings and roads. Emergency services fear further casualties as it is believed the quake may have caused a chemical leak when it hit nearby factories. Ukrainian authorities have now called for assistance with disaster relief efforts.Over 50 miners are trapped underground after a sulphur mine collapsed in western Ukraine. At least five of the miners have suffered severe burns as a result of the accident which took place this morning at 5am, close to Yavoriv, a town near the Polish border. Dozens of people were also injured as a gas explosion in the mine, 300 metres below ground, triggered earth tremors which destroyed nearby buildings and roads. Emergency services fear further casualties as it is believed the quake may have caused a chemical leak when it hit nearby factories. Ukrainian authorities have now called for assistance with disaster relief efforts.
Life and death
The events mentioned above did not take place. They were part of a simulated exercise testing NATO's new Multinational Telemedicine System, a project partly developed by the NCI Agency which was completed in early 2017. While this scenario was fictional, the challenges it posed were very real.
In crisis situations, immediate access to advanced medical care can mean the difference between life and death. Unfortunately, medical specialists are not always available to treat casualties on site. Victims must thus rely on rescue workers or paramedics and the one of the only tools at their disposal – telemedicine. Telemedicine allows rescuers to contact doctors thousands of kilometres away, inform them of a patient's condition, and seek their advice on how best to treat them.
The information can be transmitted securely within a matter of seconds.
"In the event of a disaster, telemedicine can enable physicians, located in different parts of the world, the ability to provide healthcare services remotely, to those individuals in disaster zone," explained Ambassador Sorin Ducaru, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges.
"Telemedicine can make a huge difference for a wounded person, allowing fast connectivity with high level medical expertise in the 'golden hour' between life and potential death.
I understood the meaning of this 'golden hour' during my missions with the North Atlantic Council to Afghanistan and other operational theatres, and consider telemedicine as a huge enabler for emergency response for victims of natural disasters or military conflicts."
Vital information sharing
In 2012, the NATO – Russia Council initiated a telemedicine project which was funded by NATO's Science for Peace and Security (SPS) Programme. Although Russia was involved initially, it was decided in 2014 that the Multinational Telemedicine System (MnTS) would be led by scientists and experts from NATO Allies Romania and the United States and Partner countries Finland, Moldova and Ukraine. Participating Nations and the Science for Peace and Security Programme contributed a total of 2 million EUR to the project, including 180,000 EUR which covered the cost of the support provided by the NATO Communications and Information Agency. The Agency was responsible for multiple aspects of the system. It created content, provided subject matter expertise, worked on the system's communications technologies and assumed the role of project coordinator.
As part of the project, the team had to decide which crucial information – or bio-signals - would need to be shared with 'long-distance doctors', the physicians providing medical expertise remotely. The team chose to include what is called the minimum viable dataset, namely: body temperature; heart rate; respiratory rate; blood pressure; additional signs such as any pain; a patient's level of consciousness; blood oxygen and glucose levels; gait speed; shortness of breath and functional capacity.
This led them to develop a software platform allowing all these details to be transmitted from a portable medical kit to a remote hub via satellite link or mobile network. "One of the most serious problems experienced during disaster events is the lack of appropriate means to communicate efficiently, to collect, process, and transmit important information in the midst of the disaster," commented Filip Hostiuc, NCI Agency Senior Engineer, Command and Control Services.