Present at the tra­di­tion­al BMX-Com­piègne Hal­loween Cup on Octo­ber 26, but also this sum­mer at the Paris 2024 Olympic and Par­a­lympic Games, the Sec­ouristes français Croix Blanche — Sec­ou­rut’s asso­ci­a­tion is first and fore­most respon­si­ble for the first-aid posts at UTC events, with its fifty or so vol­un­teers trained and ready to intervene.

In charge of the pub­lic and ath­letes, notably at the Stade de France dur­ing the ath­let­ics events of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Par­a­lympic Games, Sec­ou­rut’s took part in an “excep­tion­al event”, stress­es Arnaud Crémil­lieu, a 5th semes­ter stu­dent major­ing in Process Engi­neer­ing and pres­i­dent of this accred­it­ed civ­il secu­ri­ty asso­ci­a­tion cre­at­ed in 2007. Since 2013, Sec­ou­rut’s has been fed­er­at­ed by the UTC Stu­dent Office and the Croix Blanche, the French first-aid fed­er­a­tion com­mit­ted to pro­tect­ing the pop­u­la­tion and responds to the needs and requests of its part­ners by “ensur­ing the oper­a­tional aspect and the deploy­ment of a pro­vi­sion­al firstaid mech­a­nism strict­ly adapt­ed to each event,” explains the first-aid stu­dent. We’re deal­ing with peo­ple, and there’s no room for error. Trained in Cit­i­zens’ first aid (like Cit­i­zenaid in the UK), in Life-sav­ing ges­tures or Team first aid, the 51 UTC­first- aiders, most of them UTC under­grad­u­ates (17 women and 34 men), are ready to inter­vene and sac­ri­fice their time. Pub­lic, cul­tur­al and sport­ing events, cli­mat­ic events such as the severe weath­er in the Var region in 2019, and health emer­gen­cies such as the rein­force­ment of Samu 60 teams dur­ing the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic in 2020 are all on their agen­da. “In the first six months of 2024, our asso­ci­a­tion record­ed 5 749 vol­un­teer hours, equiv­a­lent to 240 days of mobi­liza­tion,” says its president.

Operational responsiveness

It is true to assert that it’s a huge invest­ment on our part,” admits Arnaud Crémil­lieu, who is com­mit­ted to ser­vice deliv­ery. I appre­ci­ate the urgency, adapt­abil­i­ty and team orga­ni­za­tion required. It’s a great way of learn­ing, and com­ple­ments our cur­ric­u­la, which always require us to pre­pare for the unex­pect­ed. If a plane does­n’t take off, we can, at the request of the pre­fec­ture and through our depart­men­tal com­mit­tee, pro­vide imme­di­ate assis­tance to trav­ellers with food, water, blan­kets…”. Anoth­er exam­ple: Sec­ou­rut’s was called out at 1pm on Octo­ber 8 by the Croix Blanche to sup­port the pop­u­la­tion dur­ing an unknown pre­fec­ture mis­sion at Parc Saint-Paul near Beau­vais. “Five avail­able res­cuers were mobi­lized. They arrived on site at 2:30 pm. There was a sim­u­lat­ed attack. For­tu­nate­ly, it was an exer­cise to test our reac­tiv­i­ty. Equipped with a recent­ly acquired vehi­cle and first-aid med­ical equip­ment, the asso­ci­a­tion has helped 171 peo­ple since the begin­ning of 2024, and has already evac­u­at­ed 25 peo­ple. Sec­ou­rut’s assis­tance is urgent­ly needed.

IL