Khokon is not a doctor or a paramedic. He is a shopkeeper who lives alongside the busy Dhaka–Chattogram highway in southeastern Bangladesh, where road traffic crashes regularly leave people dead or seriously injured. When a crash happens nearby, he may be among the first to arrive.
Sometimes the call comes when he is at home. He finds a rickshaw or a car and rushes to the scene. He treats wounds, reassures frightened victims and contacts their families. If an injury is serious, he helps get the person to hospital.
Long after the crash, some of the people he has helped come back to see him.
“They tell me and the other volunteers, ‘Your help is unforgettable. We will remember this until our death,’” he says. “I feel happy and proud, I cannot express how much.”
Khokon shares that pride with 119 other community first responders trained to improve emergency care for road crash victims through an initiative led by Bangladesh’s Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), with technical support from the World Health Organization (WHO).
The programme equips people who live and work along the highway with the skills to provide immediate first aid and help injured people reach hospital in the critical minutes following a crash. For many crash victims, these ordinary members of the community are their first chance of help.
When every minute counts
Road traffic crashes take a heavy toll in Bangladesh. In 2021, 5084 road traffic deaths were officially reported. WHO estimates that the actual toll was substantially higher, at more than 31 500.
For people who are seriously injured, the moments immediately following a crash can be critical. Severe bleeding can become fatal before a patient reaches a hospital. Yet formal pre-hospital emergency services may not always be quickly available.
To help close this gap, the community-based post-crash response system was piloted along a 10-kilometre stretch of the Dhaka–Chattogram highway in February 2023. It was expanded by a further 30 kilometres in 2025.
When a crash is reported to the programme’s 24-hour emergency hotline, the call centre records its location and the number of people injured. It then alerts nearby trained community volunteers by text message so they can respond quickly.
TraumaLink, operated by mPower Social Enterprises Ltd., provides operational support for the service, including the call centre and digital system that connects crash victims with nearby trained first responders.
The volunteers include shopkeepers, drivers, homemakers and teachers, selected in part because they live or work close enough to reach crash sites quickly. They are trained in basic trauma first aid and mass casualty triage and equipped with essential medical supplies.
Police officers, fire service personnel and hospital staff have also received training, helping strengthen coordination between those responding at the scene and the facilities receiving injured patients.
Since the programme began, 625 people involved in 476 crashes have received free care at the scene. No reported emergency call has gone unanswered. Nearly 80% of patients reached a hospital within 30 minutes of the crash.
“The strength of this approach is that volunteers are already living and working along the highway. They know the area, they can reach crash sites quickly, and they have the training and equipment to provide immediate assistance,” says Dr Watin Alam, National Professional Officer (Injury Prevention and Health Promotion), WHO Bangladesh. “The hotline and digital alert system help coordinate that response, connecting injured people with trained volunteers when time is critical.”
More than first aid
The volunteers' work often continues after the injured person has received first aid.
“Sometimes people are scared after a crash, so we comfort them,” Khokon says. “We provide first aid, reassure the injured person, get their family’s phone number and contact them.”
The volunteers also help safeguard patients' belongings, arrange transport and, when necessary, accompany injured people to hospital. They may stay until relatives arrive, ensuring that patients receive care and their possessions are handed over safely.
In one case, that responsibility continued late into the night.
Mohammad Hossain, an area coordinator, received a call about a severely injured man whose identity was unknown. With no relatives present, volunteers accompanied him to a hospital in Dhaka and stayed until he had been admitted.
They returned to their base at around 1 a.m. But they were still concerned about finding his family.
The volunteers shared the man's photograph on social media and arranged an announcement through a local mosque, hoping someone would recognize him. Eventually, they located his relatives and connected them with the hospital.
“Somehow, we managed to connect the patient with his family,” Mohammad says.
Data collected through the programme show that bus passengers have accounted for 23% of those treated, followed by motorcyclists at 22% and pedestrians at 18%. More than half were men aged between 21 and 40, many of them likely to be earning a living and supporting families.
“If I can give someone first aid, it can save his life,” Khokon says. “In a way, I am also helping to save his family, because he may be the earning person in the family.”
The road ahead
The United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety sets an ambitious goal: to reduce road traffic deaths and injuries by at least 50% by 2030. Achieving it will require safer roads and vehicles, but also better care for people injured in crashes, particularly where emergency medical services are limited.
Bangladesh is showing how communities can help close that gap, with the Government now looking to extend the model to other stretches of the national highway network.
“When someone is seriously injured in a road crash, every minute matters,” says Dr Ahmed Jamsheed Mohamed, WHO Representative to Bangladesh. “What we are seeing in Bangladesh is that ordinary people, given the right training and support, can make an extraordinary difference. WHO is committed to supporting the Government in expanding this approach so that more people can receive timely, potentially life-saving care.”
For Khokon, the next call could come at any moment. And when it does, he will be ready, willing and able to help.