Whenever emergency medical technician Darius Richardson gets a call out and hears over the radio the words “road traffic collision, black male”, he thinks to himself: “I hope that is not my son.”

Mr Richardson has been an EMT for ten years and describes driving in Bermuda as “deplorable”, he has given up riding bikes and sometimes suffers from sleepless nights after particularly bad incidents.

He has seen people taking pictures of dead bodies just minutes after they have died and still relives one bad incident every time he drives past the spot where it happened.

Figures from the Bermuda Hospitals Board show that up to the end of November this year, 1,434 people had attended the emergency department for treatment after a road collision.

Thirty-two people had to be admitted to the intensive care unit and, in the past ten years, there have been 127 fatal collisions on Bermuda’s roads.

In a press release from the Road Safety Council, Mr Richardson said: “A gentleman had hit a car head-on. He had been drinking and driving, and he died instantly. We were not two minutes away. When we got to the scene, he was not bleeding but he was dead.

“I knew the people in the car. That was traumatising but other people were taking a lot of pictures — and not even two minutes had gone by. That was about two years ago and if I drive by the spot, I still think about it.

“At home, after serious cases I might not sleep for 24 hours, playing it over and over, thinking about whether I gave it my all and thinking about the family. It would not be a restless awake; it would be reflection.”

He added: “The driving standards in Bermuda are deplorable. People are not courteous of other drivers, everyone is in a hurry to get somewhere and they are not thinking of the other person.

“The third lane — I used to do that but I refuse to get on a bike any more because of the injuries that I see.

“My oldest son has a bike and I worry about that and my youngest son is about to go 16; it’s a concern.

“Whenever I hear ‘RTC, black male’, it goes into my mind a little bit that I hope it is not my son.”

Erica Rance Mill, chairwoman of the Bermuda Road Safety Council, said it was important to remember that the effects of road collisions was not limited to the victims and their families.

“We expect the EMTs to turn up when there is an accident and to deal with it professionally and to give us the best care possible.

“We don’t stop to think that they have a private life which could be affected by the things they deal with daily.”