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Discover the people and the projects trying to make the world a better place

Discover the people and the projects trying to make the world a better place.

Discover the people and the projects trying to make the world a better place.

A weekly programme looking at common challenges around the world and the creative ways people are trying to tackle them.

Presenter Myra Anubi speaks to reporters, experts and innovators to investigate how effective different solutions are, share their successes and inspire listeners with what is possible.

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People Fixing The World: Getting Help in Emergencies in Super-Quick Time

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Getting Help in Emergencies in Super-Quick Time

09/05/2017 GMT

BBC World Service - People Fixing The World, Getting Help in Emergencies in Super-Quick Time

The man getting emergency help to accidents using just a mobile phone. And Plastic Roads.

The man getting emergency help to accidents on a Caribbean island using just a mobile phone. And Plastic Roads.

What do you do in a medical emergency when the equivalent of 999 or 911 simply doesn’t exist? After spending time in countries that lack public ambulance services, US paramedic Jason Friesen realised the problem wasn’t a lack of sophisticated ambulances, or the hi-tech medical equipment inside them, but the communication system necessary to get an injured person from A to B in time to save their life. 

In the Dominican Republic there are no public ambulances but now, in two rural areas, first responders respond to a medical emergency as fast as any ambulance service in the developed world.  And all it takes is one smartphone, a handful of willing volunteers, and an Uber-like text system that crowdsources help when disaster strikes.

And Dougal Shaw meets the man who is pioneering a way to use recycled plastic to make stronger, longer lasting roads.

Presenter: Sahar Zand
Reporters: Gemma Newby, Dougal Shaw.

Image: First responders in the back of an ambulance / Credit: BBC

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