Potsdam is practicing in an emergency: the stadium roof collapses, 170 emergency services are deployed!

Potsdam is practicing in an emergency: the stadium roof collapses, 170 emergency services are deployed!

Large exercises are scheduled for July 5, 2025 in Potsdam. The fire department and hospitals teamed up to simulate a disaster. The focus is on the partial collapse of the stadium roof in the Karl Liebknecht Stadium, which will be a serious test for everyone involved. Around 170 emergency services and 50 rescue vehicles have been mobilized, as well as a helicopter that can provide aerial support across the scenarios. It will also be tight for road users: traffic disruptions around the stadium cannot be avoided due to the exercise. The cost is around 20,000 euros, and many volunteers are actively involved in making the exercise as realistic as possible.

How many extras on site, 150 in number, play injured people. They are painted bloody for the exercise and take on various roles - from people in shock to relatives desperately searching for loved ones. This not only ensures an authentic atmosphere, but also helps the emergency services to find their way better in real crisis situations. The fire brigade in particular will train in rescuing buried or trapped victims, thus increasing their knowledge of how to deal with critical situations from the very first minute.

Goals and challenges of the exercise

The aim of the entire exercise scenario is to optimize the processes from the first deployment report to the transport of the patients to the hospitals. Antje Pfaffe, the chief physician at the central emergency room, emphasizes how important collaboration between rescue workers and doctors is. In the hospital, it is important to set priorities, especially in the case of life-threatening injuries. Because in crisis situations, quick and precise decisions must be made in order to save lives.

However, the exercise is not just a one-time affair. It is part of comprehensive crisis management. Such missions test process plans, responsibilities and communication strategies. Regular exercises are essential to develop a routine for dealing with crisis situations and to identify possible weak points in the system krisen-und-notfallmanagement.de explains that the findings from such exercises must then be incorporated into crisis and emergency manuals in order to be able to work more efficiently and safely in the long term.

Although the last similar exercises were carried out in 2012, the need for realistic training remains high. The emergency services agree: Such scenarios not only help you to be prepared for emergencies, but also to be able to react more confidently in emergencies. The challenge of not knowing any details about the exercise in advance increases the realism and sharpens their ability to react in an emergency.

What remains is the hope that, ideally, such exercises will never prove necessary. But should an emergency arise, the Potsdam emergency services are now a little better equipped to overcome the challenges of life.

It is to be hoped that these exercises will continue to be carried out regularly in the future so that they are always up to date. Tagesspiegel reports that the training of the emergency services is constantly challenged in order to be able to be used optimally in an emergency. The fact that the last simulation took place in 2012 alone makes it clear that the need for improvement and training must never end.

In summary, the exercise remains, as do the reports by rbb24 and other media show, a welcome opportunity to prepare the many emergency services as best as possible for crisis situations.