How to Evacuate Wheel Chair Bound Employees

Evacuation policies and procedures for various emergency and non-emergency events may already be instituted at your workplace. The method of evacuating wheelchair bound employees will depend on their physical location at the premises. If elevators are shut down during an emergency, manual evacuation will be necessary. It most likely will take two people to evacuate each wheelchair-bound employee located on an upper level. Without proper training, designated safety personnel, practice drills and just being aware of your fellow disabled employees, it may be too late to evacuate those who are wheelchair-bound.

Instructions

• 1

  Follow your company’s evacuation procedures for wheelchair-bound employees to ensure their safe evacuation. Know your evacuation route.

• 2

  Coordinate with your safety person to assess what actions are required. Designate enough able-bodied staff to provide transport assistance to all wheelchair-bound staff. Assign two people to assist with each disabled person requiring lift assistance.

• 3

  Locate and account for all your wheelchair-bound personnel. Follow safety guidelines and search desks, work areas, break rooms, meeting rooms and restrooms. Double check rosters and schedules; call them on cell phones to verify their positions and let them know help is on the way.

• 4

  Push any disabled persons in ground level offices to safety at a designated meeting area.

• 5

  Check for disabled persons in wheelchairs on upper floors of your building. Since elevators will most likely be turned off during an evacuation procedure, you will need to use a stairwell.

• 6

  Take the wheelchair to the stairwell so you can transport the disabled employee downstairs to safety. Assist the disabled person to rise and take hold of the two people they’re flanked by. Then allow the person to be held upright and either aid in their walking, or carry them completely. Have one person close the wheelchair and either leave it in the stairwell, or carry it with the free arm.

• 7

  Piggyback a small disabled person. Allow the person in wheelchair to grasp onto your neck and shoulders from behind. They will need the ability to hold onto you. Move away from the wheelchair to free their legs. Support legs with arms underneath buttocks in back of you. Have someone else fold the wheelchair and carry it down with them.

• 8

  Using two able-bodied persons, keep the person in the wheelchair. Approach the stairwell and rotate the chair backwards. This will help avert the person tipping out of the chair on the way down. Walk the chair down the stairs, one person in front, one in back, resting on the landings. Front person can go down forward or have their back facing the down stairs.

• 9

  Carry the wheelchair with disabled person in it to safety. Allow each able-bodied person to take a handle of the chair, lift and walk the whole chair down the stairwell. Face the person in the chair in a backwards position so they don’t fall out.