Beaucourt, 63, was best known over the years for his campaign against drunk driving, the results of which he sees all too often. He visited schools, community centres and anywhere else that would have him, armed with slides and descriptions of some of the most grisly road accident cases he had handled. He thought that if people could see for themselves the results of drunk driving, they might no longer consider it the trifling offence the public, and sometimes also the justice system, seem to think it is.

He stopped in 2009, after 15 years and 8,000 presentations. But, rather than put his free time into something a little less harrowing, he decided to concentrate on his work with intervention teams that show up at disasters worldwide. His skills as a trauma expert are obviously much in demand.

Shortly after that announcement, he was caught speeding at 186 km/h on the E34 motorway, a drastic error he later said had, together with the death of his father, turned 2009 into his worst year of his life.

Since then, he has been working with V-Med, the medical intervention team set up by the Flemish government, as well as carrying on in his emergency department. V-Med was present at the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, as well as at disasters in Chile and Pakistan. He will continue with that work, as well as teaching disaster medicine in Burma and Pakistan.

“After 20 years as head of the emergency room, I wanted to spend the last years of my career concentrating on my first passion: emergency medicine in disasters at home and abroad and the provision of structural help. I’m now ready 24 hours a day to get going,” he said.

His place at the hospital will be taken over by Koen Monsieurs, a former student at Antwerp and currently emergency specialist at the Ghent University Hospital. A former clinical head of the emergency room there, he’s an expert in resuscitation techniques and was a prominent lobbyist for the provision of defibrillators in public places.