Practice makes perfect
Tully Gorge played host to an exercise on Thursday to put emergency service crews through their paces.
The Queensland Ambulance Service ran an exercise to test the capabilities of local emergency services in response to a simulated multi casualty scenario.
On arrival at the scene crews were greeted with a simulated two vehicle traffic crash involving a mini bus and a car, with the mini bus and its occupants coming to rest in the Tully River itself.
A number of occupants of the car were entrapped and the bus passengers had been ejected into the gorge with a number of them ending up stuck on rocks within the rapids.
Emergency services work to free entrapped occupants.
The scene required crews to think quickly on their feet to ensure the best outcome for the survivors. Officers from the Queensland Ambulance Service, Queensland Fire and Emergency Service, State Emergency Service and the Queensland Police all worked as a team to get control of the incident.
Whilst the Ambulance Officers tended to patients, members of the SwiftWater Rescue Squad braved the rapids to retrieve casualties back to shore.
The exercise was conducted in an isolated location that tested the communications systems of each respective service and presented a valuable opportunity to establish what works and what doesn’t.
All in all the exercise was a great success with emergency crews coming away from the day having gained experience in the field and having a first hand opportunity to understand the roles that each other have the skills to undertake.
This exercise demonstrated that at times of crisis the system does work and that each service is more than capable of undertaking the roles assigned to them.
Swift water rescue crews recover a “victim” from the river.
Source: Cairns Crime Alert
