Sunday was the teams drill to get ready for the upcoming
summer season. It was a tune up of the teams surface rescue skills. Tom, Joe
X2, Sue, Ali, Bob, Greg and Linda were suited up and ready to go. First aiders
Max, Sarah, Corinne and Captain Jerry were also there as surface support.
We
started out with using a rescue can as an aid for swimmers, and moved on to
entry in to the water with the rescue can with both fins on and without fins.
It is not always easy getting in to the water. With waves and currents it can
become difficult. With some divers acting as victim and other as rescuers the
divers were in and out of the water many times. Entering water and swimming out
to the victim and towing the victim back in to the beach and getting the victim
out of the water and into the hands of the first aiders.
We also trained on
the miller man back board. This is a piece of equipment that we have on the
dive truck and all the squad’s ambulances. It is used if there is a neck or
back injury. It has a lot of straps and it’s not the easiest thing to use when
you can’t stand and you’re floating. So we do train using it. So if we need it
to get a victim out of the water we’ll be ready.
After a few hours
of all of this we called it a day, Tom wanted to get a picture and we lined up
so he could get his shot, he has us all jump up in the air and I got a great
group shot of all of us in mid air.
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In the debriefing after the drill I reminded the team and
the first aiders “anything can happen “so you have to be ready.
As
we started back towards the building we stopped to check the inlet to see if we
had any visibility so we could dive. What no one knew was I had planned to have
Sue jump in to the water and play the victim. She did it so well! No one saw
her jump in and it was a surprise to everyone. Linda was the first to act and
was in the water in seconds holding sue afloat, she was followed by OJ, Ali,
Greg and Bob. The first aiders got the miller man and passed down to the divers
and working as a team had Sue strapped down and ready to be lifted out of the
water in minutes. Lines were tried on the board and the first aiders had Sue up
and out of the water and into the ambulance in seconds.
Photos by Tom Conroy...
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