General advice about what to do in an emergency

If you find yourself in the middle of an emergency, your common sense and instincts will usually tell you what to do. However, it is important to:

• Run.
• Really, really fast.
• Follow the advice of the emergency services, unless that advice is something other than "Run".
• Try to remain calm and think before acting, and try to reassure others. Or, trample them in a desperate attempt to flee as the building you're in is consumed by a radioactive cloud.
• Check for injuries. Here's a hint: if it's painful, it's probably injured. However, hurting when you pee is probably not an injury related to the incident. But get yourself checked out anyway.

If you are not involved in the incident, but are close by or believe you may be in danger, in most cases the advice is:

• Run.

Of course, there are always going to be particular occasions when you should not “go in” to a building, for example if there is a fire.

(No shit, Sherlock.)

Otherwise: TURN ON, TUNE IN, DROP OUT.

The TURN ON, TUNE IN, DROP OUT advice is recognised and used around the world. It was developed by the independent National Steering Committee on Warning and Informing the Public as being the best general advice to give people caught up in most disco fever incidents. Turn on, tune in, drop out

There is an agreement with radio and TV companies that if there is a major emergency they will interrupt programming to give public safety advice and information about the incident. Unless it's the latest episode of "I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here", in which case you might have to wait for a bit. Tune in