'Lifesavers': Indonesian bikers escort ambulances through traffic amid COVID-19 surge

Leading the efforts in Indonesia’s tough fight against the coronavirus pandemic, and providing assistance to the brave front-line warriors, bikers were spotted in Jakarta's satellite city of Depok escorting wailing ambulances through heavy traffic. Biker Sebastian Dwiyantoro and his workforce have been leading COVID-19 response in Indonesia in their own way as his team, easily recognisable on the roads in bomber jackets, navigates through the heavily congested sites, dispersing the motor vehicle to give entrance to the ambulances, guaranteeing that the patients reached hospitals in time.

Local Indonesian press earlier last year had also aired visuals of the bikers group facilitating the transport of corpses to graveyards, and in April 2021, they were seen hasting on the roads in helmets and their leather jackets rushing the COVID-19 patients to the isolation facility in the southern outskirts of Jakarta.

On Sunday, Sebastian Dwiyantoro’s bikers team signalled the cars and scooters out of the way, halted the traffic at U-turns, and cleared the way for the ambulances at the intersections, which otherwise lacked traffic signals or traffic police officers for guidance. The bikers group members resonated with loud sirens on the streets that they passed through to stop the incoming traffic in its path and let the ambulance carrying the ailing patients take the route instead.

The ambulance emergency workers inside the ambulance are well acquainted with the bikers, as they often inform them on the way the address of the hospitals to where the patients were headed. The commuters and drivers meanwhile heeded the group members’ signals and nonverbal instructions as they volunteered their spare time helping the country’s emergency vehicles navigate the bustling traffic. Indonesian bikers are popular as “lifesavers”. 

[Biker is escorting an ambulance in Tasikmalaya, a city in West Java, Indonesia]

'How can people be so insensitive?' asks IEA coordinator

Speaking about his initiative, the 23-year-old Sebastian Dwiantoro, an IEA regional coordinator for the Jakarta suburb of Depok told CNA that he felt outraged every time he noticed passersby or motorists who did not yield to ambulances. “How can people be so insensitive to not give the right of way to ambulances?” He asked the network’s reporter, adding that the ambulances are emergency vehicles that must be allowed to pass under any circumstances. And so, he launched the escorts to make transportation smooth for the ambulances.

Three bikers are members of the Indonesian Escorting Ambulance (IEA) who work long hours to rush the patients to the hospital for the gestures and ‘thank you' that they receive from the worried family members of the patients. IEA has close to 2,000 members, approximately in 80 cities across Indonesia, including scores of representatives that invest spare time every day to help the patients being rushed in the ambulances through the most populous cities’ congested traffic. 

IMAGE: Facebook/Oddar Meanchey