Dougherty County Emergency Medical Services (EMS) will host a kickoff meeting for the Southwest Region of the Traffic Incident Management Services (TIMS) team on Thursday, Nov. 14, 2019, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Dougherty County EMS West Station Training Room located at 503 N. Westover Blvd., in Albany, Georgia. The meeting will include first responders from 13 counties in the Southwest Georgia region, which includes Dougherty County.

A unit of the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT), the TIMS Team was created to develop and
sustain a region-wide incident management program to facilitate the safest and fastest roadway clearance, lessening the impact on emergency responders and the motoring public. The TIMS Task Force has a three-fold mission: to continue the dialogue in ways to improve inter- agency coordination and cooperation; to create an opportunity for multi-agency training, which promotes teamwork; and to serve as a platform for participants to develop common operational strategies and a better understanding of other agencies’ roles and responsibilities.

“We are pleased to kick off TIMS training for our region,” said Sam Allen, Director of EMS for Dougherty County. “This course will teach our regional first responders to better use safety procedures to protect the crews on-site working accident scenes.”

With a record of three injury crashes occurring every minute in the United States, nearly 39,000 incident
responders are potentially in harm’s way each day. Congestion from these incidents often generates secondary crashes, further increasing traveler delay and frustration. The longer incident responders remain at the scene, the greater they are at risk. Well-trained responders help improve traffic incident response and better incident response improves the safety of responders and drivers and reduces crashes that occur because of incident-related congestion.

The National Traffic Incident Management Responder Training was created by responders for responders.

Providing first responders a shared understanding of the requirements for safe, quick clearance of traffic
incident scenes, prompt, reliable and open communication, and motorist and responder safeguards, first
responders learn how to operate more efficiently and collectively.

TIMS training is now required for all licensed EMT’s and Paramedics in the state of Georgia. The training
provides a better understanding of how to manage an accident scene and trains first responders on
how to park the emergency vehicle for warning and on-scene protection. It also explains how to make
every effort to keep traffic flowing, as well as helping to decrease possible accidents by passing automobiles.