Emergency Services Delayed due to Confusion over Shopping Centre Location

On Friday 7 February 2025, Luxembourg's emergency services (CGDIS) took the unusual decision to issue a press release providing details of the facts surrounding the delay in deploying emergency services during a road traffic accident that occurred on Saturday 25 January 2025 in Huldange, near Troisvierges in the far north of the Gran Duchy.

Following the accident, teams of the Grand Ducal Fire and Rescue Corps (CGDIS) were dispatched to an incorrect address; an internal analysis has revealed the following facts:

- The emergency call came in to CSU-112 at 18:07 
- The first emergency services (including SAMU Ettelbruck) were alerted at 18:08 
- The emergency services were sent to the Knauf Shopping Centre in Pommerloch.
- At 18:18, the Wiltz ambulance team informed the CSU-112 that they had not found any accident on the public road.
- At 18:24, after listening to the emergency call again, additional emergency resources were sent the Knauf Shopping Centre in Huldange.
- The Troisvierges ambulance arrived at the scene of the accident at 18:33, 26 minutes after the emergency call.
- The Ettelbruck SAMU arrived at the scene at 18:55, followed by the Clervaux ambulance, which arrived in Huldange at 19:00
- The two ambulances accompanied by the Ettelbruck SAMU left the scene of the accident for the hospital with two patients at 19:33
- The patients arrived at the emergency room of the Centre hospitalier du Nord at 20:10

The replay of the emergency call and the interviews conducted with the personnel involved in the management of this call made it possible to determine that the CSU-112 operator who received the call confused the two shopping centres of the same name despite the fact that the caller had clearly specified that the accident had occurred at the place called "Op der Schmëtt" in Huldange. Knowing only of the existence of the Shopping Centre in Pommerloch, the operator in question assumed that the accident had occurred at this location. He realised his mistake only when the emergency call was replayed.

Because of this error, the CGDIS emergency teams arrived sixteen minutes late at the scene of the intervention in Huldange.

According to the CGDIS statement, "the volunteer and professional staff of the CGDIS work every day to provide rapid and effective assistance to people in distress. We sincerely regret that in this case, the arrival of emergency services was unnecessarily delayed. A letter to this effect was sent by the Director General of the CGDIS to the victim's family in order to propose a meeting which would allow, if they wish, to provide all the explanations relating to the progress of the intervention. Based on the analysis of the facts carried out, the Director General of the CGDIS initiated a feedback session during which the procedures in place as well as the actions carried out in the management of the emergency call will be studied critically and in depth with the aim of making the necessary changes and determining improvements to be made to the training of our staff with the aim of avoiding, as far as possible, such errors from happening again in the future."