Something you don't expect

I didn't expect that being a road rescue operator would alter how I read the news.  Somewhere it turned out that I'd go through my incoming news emails and digest most of the stories that relate to road accidents around the world.

A fairly bald report out of Dallas tells me that -

Firefighters rescued a driver that went off Loop 820 into the Trinity River in Fort Worth Saturday morning.

Fort Worth firefighters responded to a call about the crash on East Loop 820 near Randol Mill Road at about 5 a.m.

A technical rescue spent more than an hour extracting the driver from the vehicle, according to authorities.

Knowing how these things go, even this summary leaves me with a rough picture of the extrication: the work of getting a hydraulic pump and hoses and cutting and spreading gear from the truck to the crash site and the difficulty of finding something solid enough in the wreck of the car to press on to operator the spreaders and trying to find a way to take the casualty from the vehicle without compromising their spine.  And the time it took is revealing - an hour rather than the ideal of twenty minutes or less.  The crew that went out would have been drained at the end of the job.  If it went badly, they would have gone through the miserable feeling of why nothing was working.

I've been to fatal accidents, but I've been lucky that they haven't affected me much because the job itself went well and we did what we were trained to do.  What I've found toughest has been after a rescue or a search when things don't work properly.  When the truck rolled with the wrong crew on board, or a search team crashed a vehicle or crew leaders get into a heated bicker over radio frequencies.  Those are the moments you are bent out of shape and can't be unbent and when you hate the job and yourself and wonder where it began to unravel.

I don't think I'm unique in this.  If you're in the emergency services or know someone who is, maybe bear this in mind if they've been to a 'difficult' job.  Sometimes it's not the worst accident but the worst response that knocks people around.

Happy to start with a wrecked car

Yesterday was a good day, for me at least.

In the early afternoon I was on the phone to a friend in Beechworth about a small legal matter when my pager began to squeal for a road crash rescue.  My friend is an SES volunteer as well and so she understood why I had to end the call very quickly.

The accident was in Tatura.  I had to go the long way because the Toolamba bridge is still closed, and so I was driving like a bat out of Hell at a perfectly safe and legal speed.  I got as far as Kialla when a crew from our Unit got to the scene and confirmed that there was no person trapped.  We stood down.  Happily it seems the driver's injuries weren't too serious.

Usually a standdown like this would be a dreadful anticlimax: what does one do with a whole heap of unused adrenaline?  This one wasn't.  I was too proud of how well the Unit had handled the turnout.  It was clear we would be light on numbers because of the holidays, so our duty officer activated a backup unit without any fuss.  The members who turned out are road crash-rescue trained but don't have colossal experience, but they didn't stand around wringing their hands or hoping a veteran member would arrive: they just got on the road to do the job they'd been called to do.  There was no kibbitzing or free advice over the messaging system: only the communications that needed to be sent to have the members respond as efficiently as possible.

I am DEAD proud of the Tatura SES team right now. This job ultimately didn't require a rescue, but the team turned out exactly how it was trained to do. The UDO activated backup as soon as it was clear we were light on for numbers, and the members in town had the truck en route exactly within the target time. Well done guys! #seslife #roadrescue #emergencyservices #orangefamily

A photo posted by Stephen Tuck (@sdtuc2) on Jan 2, 2017 at 7:52pm PST

If we're honest, I kind of needed this.  I've felt a little SES-ed out lately: tired and fed up with it all.  Seeing the team respond in such a skilful manner was just what the doctor ordered. That the driver wasn't badly hurt is even better.  I have to tell you there are a lot worse ways we could have started 2017!

Road Rescue Extrication Techniques - Vehicle Relocation

Last night Tatura State Emergency Service Unit trained in relocating vehicles so to conduct an effective extrication following a road crash.  Ideally, of course, a road crash rescue team will strive to be able to extricate a casualty from a vehicle in any position in any location.  However, where a car or truck can be moved to give a crew more space to work or a more stable platform, this makes for a speedier and less risky rescue.

 

Image from here

 

We first assumed that the vehicle had come to rest on its wheels with one side against a tree, so that it would be impossible to reach a casualty in the passenger side seats with any ease.  The best approach is to hitch a chain around the rear axle and trail the end of the chain away from the car.

 

 

Attach the cable of a tirfor winch to the chain to pull the rear of the car around and away from the tree (or building or power pole).  The weight of the engine in the front of the car will tend to enable the rear of the vehicle to pivot.  Remember, however, that as the vehicle moves it may roll on the front tyres; consider removing the key and locking the steering wheel (advise the police officer on scene if you do this)

 

 

A tirfor winch is to be preferred to using a motorised winch.  A motorised winch will tend to jerk the car.  This is not consistent with good spine management.  The winch handle should be used in a circular or figure-eight motion rather than simply left-to-right for the same reason.

 

 

The vehicle should be pivoted to one-and-a-half times the length of the extrication tools to give the rescue crew an ideal space within which to work.

 

In the second scenario, it was assumed that the vehicle had come to rest on its side with its roof against a tree or other obstacle.  In this case a side roof-flap is clearly impossible.  The best approach is to return the vehicle to its wheels so to commence extrication.  Hitch a chain around the uppermost part of the rear axle and connect it to the cable from a winch.

 

The next step is to put a strap around the tree or pole (or a building fixture if you can be confident it will take the weight) and shackle a block (a swing-cheek pulley may be best) to it.  Run a winch cable through the block and connect it to a chain which has been hitched around the uppermost B-pillar of the car.

 

 

In this scenario both winches will be on the same side of the car.  The winch connected to the rear axle should be operated to pull the vehicle towards the winch, while the winch connected to the B-pillar is released to allow the vehicle to tip.  It is vital that the crew leader watches the movement of the vehicle and closely directs the winch operators.  The B-pillar winch should be released only enough to allow the vehicle to tip but not so much that the vehicle will 'drop' when it passes the tipping point.

 

The crew leader should tell the winch operators when the vehicle is  about to pass the tipping point.  When it passes this point the load will shift from the axle-winch to the B-pillar winch.  The operator of the latter can then lower the vehicle to the ground.  A crew member should be tasked with pulling the axle-winch cable away from the descending vehicle to avoid the cable being crushed and damaged.

 

If the vehicle is lowered in this manner, minimal extra distress should be caused to the casualties.  The rescue crew will then be able to carry out the extrication in an orthodox manner.

 

 

Orange Intensity

Hi everyone,

 

For the first time this week I’m getting a chance to update you.  It’s been intense.

 

Tuesday

Tuesday morning the rain had largely cleared through, although various river flood warnings were still coming in.  The rain that had fallen elsewhere in the catchments was starting to find its way down to our parts of the Goulburn and Broken Rivers and Seven Creeks.  I spent the morning circulating warnings from the Bureau of Meteorology and establishing what sorts of resources the City Council could throw our way if we needed them.

At midday I got a call from the Incident Control Centre.  A house which we’d looked at yesterday in a low lying area was at risk of being flooded if the river rose to a predicted level.  The house was to be sandbagged on all sides.  We’d be provided with as much sand and sandbags as we needed.  A bag-loading machine would be towed down from the Echuca SES Unit, and a work team would be sent out from Dhurringile Prison.  The ICC had already arranged for volunteers to come and lend a hand from the Northwest Mooroopna and Shepparton fire brigades and a local search and rescue unit.  Oh, and by the way: I was to be the Incident Controller!

What other resources would I need?  I thought quickly and asked if volunteers could be sought from the nearest SES Units.  Volunteers ultimately came from the Rushworth and Numurkah units.

Being made the Incident Controller meant that I was in charge of the whole operation: There were about forty people, the sandbagging machine, lots of shovels and manual sandbag fillers and a front end loader from the Council (for loading sand into the machine).  Units brought lighting equipment as we’d be working into the evening, and I was able to request additional truckloads of sand as we needed them.  I found myself needing to decide where people parked, how the bags were to be filed, what pattern they’d be laid in, how they’d get from the filling area to the wall, and all the other minutiae of the operation.  I’d never had to run a job on that scale before.  In honesty, I was getting a bit overwhelmed and I was immensely grateful when an older and very experienced member of the Rushworth SES Unit offered to shadow me – which meant that he took notes for me and also helped me to set priorities, appoint managers for different parts of the operations and generally keep it on track.

 

The teams from the various units worked well together, especially once the job found its rhythm.  I can’t speak highly enough of the prison inmates who were there:  they worked flat out for the whole time and only stopped for their meal break at 1830.  Dhurringile is a minimum security prison, so most of them were close to the end of their sentence.  I don’t know what they were in for (save that one of them was apparently getting to the end of a stretch for murder), but they certainly knew how to work.

Running the job was intense, but I’m proud to say that the job got done efficiently and successfully.  There were no disasters, no downtime for want of supply, and towards the end I was finding I was settling into my own role as incident controller.  A few years ago I could never have done that.  I’m proud of what I did.

It took a couple of hours after the wall was finished to get the equipment packed up and returned to the correct depots and the crews on their way home.  It took me a bit longer to get home too as rising waters had cut a number of roads.  I walked in the door about 2230.

Wednesday Morning

On Wednesday morning the unit was tasked with making contact with the homeless people who live in the bush reserve along the Goulburn River between Shepparton and Mooroopna.  The area is low lying, and they mainly live in tents.  This means they’re at risk of becoming isolated or worse if the river overtops.

We took our transport and support vehicles (a Nissan Patrol and Navara), as they’re built for going offroad.  We visited all of the camps we could locate and spoke to everyone who could be found.  Most of them had been watching the rising waters and had already made plans to move to higher ground.  Perhaps paradoxically, they were more self-reliant than most people are.  They assumed that help was unlikely to be coming for them.

Wednesday Afternoon

We’d planned to do some more community education about flood risk in the afternoon (by putting up an information stall at a shopping centre).  We were just sitting down to lunch before starting that job when all our pagers went off for a single vehicle road accident with a person trapped.  Did we move fast?  Yeah we moved fast with lights and sirens that whole way.

I don’t think I should tell details of the operation itself – the SES discourages us from sharing those sorts of things.  I can tell you, though, that it was the most difficult extrication any of us had been involved in.  There was a tree literally though the cabin of the vehicle, and the front driver’s side wheel was where the centre console should have been.  The passenger side of the car was into the table drain, so for most of the job we were knee deep in muddy water.  This was the scene after the extrication was completed -

It took a full hour to complete the extrication.  Every one of us was exhausted afterwards and we spent a couple of hours at the shed afterwards cleaning the gear and debriefing (we also ordered pizza).  I think we all just needed to process a bit.  Usually after a road rescue you feel kind of pumped up; this time I think we all felt the opposite.

Thursday

No callouts on Thursday, which was frankly a relief.  However, I had a large backlog of administrative things for SES to do and a certain amount of organising to do.  I still felt the strain from the previous day’s accident.  It was on my mind especially as the higher-ups had asked us to conduct a post-action review, so that any learnings could be drawn from the difficult job.  This took up the unit’s training night, and on the plus side we did get some useful information about how our systems are working well and where they can be improved.

Today

I’ve kept it low-key today, filing incident reports from the last few days and tackling some of my leftover emails.  I’m feeling like myself again (aside from being tired), and I’m proud of the work the Unit has done this week.

On to the next set of challenges!

Racing to a train

Hi everyone,

Today had a big gulp of unexpected good news.  About midday I was working on a talk that I'm giving tomorrow for a club over in Tatura when my pager started the constant high-pitched howl it makes when we're being called out to a rescue.  It was one of those jobs you usually class as 'nightmare scenario', a car versus train accident.  I was duty officer, so I called dispatch and acknowledged the job, and then sent a message asking all available members to turn out.  The accident was closer to me than the SES shed, so I decided to go there straight from home.

The good news I mentioned took the form of a follow-up pager message advising that nobody was trapped, but requesting that SES attend anyway, presumably in case further assistance was required.  I crossed paths with our truck on the way and hopped aboard.

In line with SES policy, I don't feel I should talk here about the scene and so on here.  The account offered by the Shepparton News says that -

Police, CFA, Ambulance and SES services attended a level crossing on Pogue Rd in Toolamba after the driver of a vehicle hit a V/Line passenger train on the Shepparton-Seymour line at around 12 noon.  Paramedics said the male driver of the vehicle was lucky to be alive.  He was treated on scene for minor injuries and was taken to the Goulburn Valley Hospital.  CFA incident controller Colin James said all the passengers on the train escaped without injury.  Passengers told The News that they heard a loud bang and saw debris flying everywhere.

Two of our members had gone direct to scene, but the fire brigade was already smoothly evacuating passengers from the train.  Once we'd checked and confirmed that there was nothing we could do to add value, we fired up the truck and returned to the shed.  At some point in this process, the News was interviewing passengers from the train.

It always feels like a bit of an anticlimax when you've gone like a bat out of hell driven at a safe and legal speed to get to the scene of an accident and found you're not needed.  In this case especially I don't mind at all.  Much better a smashed car and a dinged train and a somewhat injured driver than that a family somewhere has to arrange a funeral.

Extrication techniques: Cracking the Egg

Hi everyone,


Last night the Tatura SES Unit trained in a road rescue technique we hadn't used before.  I'm writing up some notes on it now which might be useful to people, rather than trusting my notoriously sieve-like memory.  The technique is referred to as "Cracking the Egg" and is an option where a car is on its roof and space is at a premium (for example, if the roof has collapsed).  For the purposes of the exercise it was assumed that the vehicle is a sedan and that rear seats are unoccupied.


The first step was to remove the rear doors.  Crush the door sill with the spreaders to create space to get the spreader tips in.  We found last night that the base of the door was strong enough to take the pressure required to break the latch on the door.  My impression was that if one ran into difficulties, it would be possible to work the spreaders around the door from the base to the latch to break it.  Once the latch is broken and the door freed, it can be removed by spreading or unscrewing the hinges.

Once the rear doors have been removed on both sides, use the shears and make a relief cut through the door sill a few inches rearwards of the B-pillar (remember to peel-and-reveal the interior trim first).  While this is happening, another crew member should be tasked with removing or neutralising dangers from any fuel lines, exhaust pipes or other under-vehicle fittings.

Relief cut during lift

Spreaders should be equipped with chain tips and opened to their fullest extent and the chains run in a Y-pattern from each speader tip to the front and rear crossmembers.  We found that it was necessary to rest the spreaders on some stabilization blocks.

Two ratchet straps should also be run from the rear to the front of the vehicle, with the ratchets hooked on at the front.  From memory last night the straps and ratchets were hooked on the towing points and crossmembers.  The straps should be left free in the ratchet and not tightened, and a crewmember assigned to each ratchet.  When the rear is lifted, the straps can be quickly pulled through and then the ratchet engaged to tighten the straps as a safety measure.


Because the spreader chains are fairly bulky, it will be almost impossible to tighten them when they're first fitted to the car.  An initial 'grab' by the spreaders will draw the chains tight and they can then be adjusted.  After this has been done, the spreader operator should close the spreaders in a single non-jerky movement.

This will raise the back of the car and allow access to the casualties in the front seat.

As mentioned before, the ratchet straps should be tightened to hold the load if the spreader or chains somehow fail.

Take care not to pull the rear of the car past its tipping point: unless you've set up (say) a tirfor winch and are ready to do a controlled lowering, the falling section will cause a lot of movement in the vehicle (as in this video) and risk further injuring the casualties or trapping a crewmember.  That said, a crew might be wise to put cribbing blocks on the floorpan to reduce the risk of a hand or arm being trapped.


Put together, the entire operation runs like this:

Video courtesy of Tatura SES Unit

Road crash rescue workshop - May 2016

Hi everyone,

I started this post on Sunday evening after the North East Region road crash rescue workshop and finished it today.  It’s been a very valuable day and I thought it might be useful to write the learnings down instead of purely carrying them about inside my head.

Car on car

The day mainly took the form of three/four practical stands covering somewhat ‘unconventional’ road rescue situations.  The first of the exercises we were presented with was of one car mounted on the bonnet of another, as here –

 

The object of this exercise was to stabilise the vehicles effectively. Primary stabilisation was effected with plastic blocks on both vehicles and by chocking the wheels.  Further stabilization was carried out with the always useful stabfast braces on either side of the top vehicle.

 

The other particularly useful lesson was the use of ratchet straps to connect the topmost part of the vehicle on top to a tree or some other fixed object to minimise the risk of it sliding and causing injury to casualties or responders. 

Car under trailer

The second stand covered cars being stuck under a semi-trailer.  This is particularly topical for North-East region units, whose areas are crossed by (among others) the Hume, Northern, Midland and Goulburn Valley Highways. 

 

The recommended mode of release was to disconnect the prime mover and build a tower of cribbing blocks under area of the turntable pin, which is then topped with one or more airbags to provide lift.

Image from here

The trailer is supported while lifting with towers of cribbing blocks placed under its rails.  It seems to me that if one were doing this in the field, it’d be wise to seek advice from the driver as to the distribution of the load in the trailer so to reduce the risk of overbalancing.

 

It also crosses my mind that a particular risk would be posed by inherently unstable loads, especially livestock.  It’s not hard to imagine circumstances where a truck carrying cattle, in particular, may be almost impossible to work on safely without the assistance of (for instance) heavy vehicle tow operators.

While the trailer is being lifted, the bonnet of the trapped car should be forced down towards the ground using a ratchet strap hooked onto the wheels: this will compress the suspension and prevent the car from ‘rising’ with the trailer.

A truck driver I was speaking with last night mentioned that many semi-trailers have adjustable airbag suspension which could on its own lift the trailer clear of a car, assuming the airlines remain intact. In the field it would be wise to ask the driver whether they can attempt to lift the trailer using the truck’s own power

Lower leg entrapment

Door removal

The third and fourth stands overlapped somewhat, covering door removal and dashboard lift.  Door removal can be effected by using the spreaders to widen the window vertically.  This will distort the door enough to create a gap between the door and the frame which the spreaders can progressively widen until they can be brought to bear on the door lock itself, breaking it open.  This process makes it almost impossible to ‘skin’ the door (that is, peeling off the outer metal curtain but leaving the door itself in place).  After the check strap is cut (boltcutters will do this) the spreaders can be used to break the lower and upper door hinges (in that order) allowing the door to be removed entirely.

Image from here

 

The process can then be repeated on the other door.  Working quickly, my guess is that it would take about three minutes for a road rescue crew to go from this …

… to this -

Dashboard Lift

This removal of doors leads pretty naturally to carrying out a ‘dash lift’, which may be necessary to free feet and legs which are trapped under a collapsed dashboard.  This can be carried out by using the spreaders to force the front-side panel out of the way, exposing the bottom of the A-pillar.  While working in that area, make a relief cut in the frame of the engine bay just above the tyre (you may need to crush the frame before cutting).  Relief cuts should also be made through the A-pillar and horizontally across the windscreen.

 

After this, make two horizontal cuts near the base of the A-pillar (remember to pry away the interior trim to be certain you know what you’re cutting into) and then pull that section out of the way:

After this has been done, the speaders can be used to lift the entire side of the dashboard out of the way – the relief cut in the engine bay frame made earlier will allow it to move without significantly distorting the rest of the car.

It was a hugely productive weekend for all of us – many thanks to the North East Region for putting it on!

Emergency Responses at Railways

This note is based on the Victoria State Emergency Service's Standard Operating Procedure 23: Operations Involving Rail Track Transport.

 

Train Network Hazards

Rail networks around the world tend to use a mix of electric and diesel trains.  This poses particular considerations for emergency responders.  In the State of Victoria, the suburban rail network is electrically powered with overhead wires carrying 1500 volts.  The country rail network is overwhelmingly powered by diesel locomotives.

A number of factors will affect train stopping distances.  However, under normal circumstances, the following distances will apply -

• Inner suburban train travelling at 50 kilometres (about 31 miles)/hour - 160 metres (about 174 yards)
• Suburban train travelling at 80 kilometres (about 49 miles)/hour - 360 metres (about 393 yards)
• Heavy freight train in a country area travelling at 160 kilometres (about 100 miles)/hour - 4 kilometres (about 2.5 miles)

Image from here

 

Scene Hazards

In general, the area within 3 metres (3 yards) horizontally or vertically of the nearest rail should be considered a danger zone.

If engaged in operations at a train station, the area on the tracks between station platforms is especially hazardous because there is often no escape route save for climbing back onto the platform.  This area should not be entered without a lookout being in place.

Image from here

 

Arrival on Scene

The control centre for the affected railway should be contacted to confirm that they are aware of the incident and can determine whether the trains should be halted on the line.  A crew leader should consider requesting that the railway operator make a technical expert available to advise on operations involving a train, although in the first instance contact should be made with the train's driver or conductor.

Rescue vehicles should not be parked across railway lines.  A crew leader should seriously consider sending one or more crew members up and down the line with a portable radio to watch for oncoming trains.

 

Operations on Scene

If working with an electric train, do not assume that the power is off without confirmation from the railway operator.  On any rail line, take care around points or other interlocking parts: these can move without warning and crush or sever hands and feet.

Advise the driver and the railway control centre before commencing work near or under a train.  Trains can move if air pressure in the braking system is lost, and derailment or obstacles may cause a carriage to be unbalanced and unstable.  A railway technical expert should be consulted before taking steps to lift the train from the tracks: lifting can cause the train to derail and be extremely dangerous.

Watch for Audible Track Warning Signals (pictured).  These are warning devices which explode when a train runs over them.  Do not stand within 40 metres (43 yards) of such a device as an explosion may cause hearing damage.

Image from here

 

Lookout Person

A lookout should be posted to watch for oncoming trains.  Given the stopping distances mentioned above, the lookout should be stationed 1.2 kilometres (0.75 mile) from the scene in a city area and 2-4 kilometres (1.25-2.5 miles) in a rural area.  To warn the driver of such a train, a lookout should walk towards the train (while clear of the track), while holding both hands straight above their head or while waving a red flag.  At night a clear light should be waved rapidly.  They should alert the crew at the scene by radio.

 

Passengers

In general, passengers should remain on the train if there is no threat to their welfare.  Advice should be sought from the railway operator on this point.  Once evacuated, passengers should be kept together in a safe area away from the rail line.

One long day

Hi everyone,

Yesterday became quite a long day!

I don't think I mentioned it before, but back in January I was appointed Controller of my SES Unit.  I'm finding I'm genuinely enjoying it, and it's a great team to lead.  Anyway, one of the responsibilities is doing a reasonably steady stream of paperwork, sorting out emails and informing people about training.

Yesterday afternoon I was at the office after work sorting through some of the paperwork for that evening's training session when my pager went off, advising of an accident just south of town.  I don't think I should post here about precisely how the job unfolded, so I'll take the liberty of simply sharing here the link to the statement issued by our friends at Victoria Police -

Fatal collision in Tatura: A man has died following an incident on the Murchison-Tatura Road in Tatura this afternoon. A Ford sedan travelling south…...

The SES team clocked off at about 1am, and I was at home and in bed about 3am.

The thing that I want to say is that the unit performed astonishingly well: there was no drama and no tunnel vision from anybody.  Everyone - from the crew leader to the member on the tools to the radio operator back at the shed knew their job and got on and did precisely what they were trained to do, despite the (let us say) intense circumstances.  Right now I could not be prouder of the men and women of our unit.

Seatbelts and Shaking my Head

Two news stories in the last couple of days have left me shaking my head.  The first is out of Copiah County, Mississippi.  Therese Apel reports that a Joshua Jones lost control of his vehicle, hit a tree and was fatally injured.

In the second - in St Tammany Parish, Louisiana - a driver was tailended, causing his vehicle to run off the road, overturn and hit some trees.  The driver was ejected from the truck and (also) killed (report by Robert Rhoden).

The common factor was that neither driver was wearing a seatbelt.

 

Images from here and here

I don't care what the law is in your jurisdiction.  For the love of God, put your damn seatbelt on unless you're tired of life.  First responders can save you, but only if someone's still there to save.

A Chevy, a Ford and a paddlesteamer

Hi everyone,

It's been a full couple of days here.  Yesterday morning I stopped in at the VicRoads office in Shepparton to have my boat licence formally issued.  This went smoothly, although it may have been just as well there was no music playing when they took my photo.  Otherwise who knows what might have happened?

 

   

Before                                                          After

Images from here

The day at work was surprisingly full, thank God.  I still managed to get out for a walk at lunch and spotted a couple of restored vehicles - a Ford Falcon and a Chevy truck.  Noting the ancient rivalry between those two companies it's perhaps proper that they were on opposite sides of Ross Street!  This was the Ford -

  

And this was the Chevy -

I don't plan to buy into the Ford v Chevy debate.  The car I demanded the most from - and got - was a Toyota Corolla that was ancient when I acquired it.  It left me with an eternal respect for the sheer un-kill-ability of Japanese engineering (it finally died after being run without oil for about 10 miles; I still feel a bit bad about that).

Image from here

On the subject of elderly machinery (and for that matter, affairs nautical), the water resources news emails the company sends us every day covered another subject I'm fond of: riverboats.  The story itself was about how the PS Cumberoona will be based from this point at Yarrawonga rather than Albury.

 

Image from here

The mystique that surrounds riverboats is a remarkable thing.  As technology, paddlewheelers have been obsolete since the day in March 1845 when HMS Rattler towed HMS Alecto backwards.  Despite all of which, if I ever again get together with a Southern girl, the relationship will need to involve a paddlesteamer on the Mississippi at some point.

I didn't have a huge amount of spare time after work before I needed to be heading back to the farm, but I took an hour for a run.  The sun was very bright going down: a week or so more and I'm going to want sunscreen for these outings.  I did the Pyke Road loop (in reverse this time) which took me out of Tatura and then back into it again

 

 

I was partly crafting this blogpost as I ran, although I'd forgotten my ipod so I kept getting distracted by the sound of my own breathing.  The run back into Tatura down Hogan Street was as good as it always is: past the pub (I wanted to stop!) and the take away (I wanted to stop!) and the Foodworks with the good fruit selection (I really wanted to stop).  Best of all though was it takes me past the buildings tied to Sacred Heart church, that are built in red brick that looks so good in the setting sun.  This time I snapped a picture of the building that was accommodation for pupils when the Church school accepted boarders.

There were some chores and odds and ends to do when I got back to the farm.  Is it strange that I feel almost grateful to have the chance to support the parental units in this way?  Maybe grateful isn't the right adjective.  I mean, who really feels thrilled by household chores?  But in a way, I kind of feel like I'm making up for having been such a ratshit support to the ex after Grace and Rachel were born.  I did try the best I could then, but the plain truth is that my best wasn't good enough then.  Well, life is about learning.  Ancora Imparo.

No more for now.  I should post again later this evening after the swimming test (it's a pre-requisite for the rescue boat crew course).

More later

The time I decided trousers weren't for me

Hi everyone,

 

Those of you who know me offline may know that my car has been a long time between washes.  The truth is that living on a dirt road and being on a place where water is at a premium means that a clean car has to be viewed as a bit of a luxury (note to self: living in a low-water world would make a good post!).

 

Anyway, it'd been getting beyond a joke, so yesterday after work I took my car to the carwash here in Tatura to return it to its natural white. 

 

At first I was planning on nothing more signficant than a quick scrub and a rinse, which I could perfectly well do in my suit trousers.  However, I started looking at the suite of things I could do to wash, wax, clearcoat and generally beautify the car and decided to go for it

 

 

One problem: this generated a lot more spray and a lot more cleaning products than initially planned.  What to do?  I decided to whip off my suit trousers in the carwash ... For a little bit I actually thought about just saying the Hell with it and leaving it at that.  Frankly, anyone lunatic enough to want to see my body deserves all they get!  But then, I realised I was going to me messing about with hot spray wax, and that had potential for all sorts of misadventure.  With a sense of responsibility I pulled on a pair of jeans I had in my kit bag.

 

Clothing issues addressed, I went ahead and cleaned the car from top to bottom.  I think you'll agree it was worth it -

 

Before

 

 

After

 

 

Worth every dollar!

 

A man and a mountain!

Hi everyone

 

We're now about a week out from when news of Mum's stroke broke, and life is settling into normal.  I didn't think it was right before now to do a writeup of last weekend's 4WD course - seemed kind of a lightweight thing when something more serious had happened.

 

This has nothing to do with anything but I took it the other night and it's a cool picture! 

 

Anyway, last Saturday I drove over to Murchison where I was going to meet with Ross, a fellow volunteer from Tatura who was bringing our unit's Nissan Patrol.  Murchison, as I think I've said before, is a little town with a big bridge.  It's a pleasing design to look at and has this little echo of being a pocket Sydney Harbour Bridge.

 

 

We drove down to the Seymour unit where the initial stage of the course was to be held.  The trainer was Kris, who does a lot of the training in the North East region for SES.  This has two good points.  First, because it was an SES course, there was an assumption that everyone involved knew literally nothing about Four-Wheel driving (in my case, completely true).  Secondly, Kris is ex-military, which means his preference for training is to start building knowledge ab initio. So, my being a basic vehicular klutz wasn't a problem.

 

 

 

 

The ideal training aid was supplied in the form of a chassis stripped down so that one could literally see what goes on under the floor of a vehicle.

 

We were put into groups of four people and allocated to one of a number of vehicles for training purposes.  One of the real assets my group had was a member from the Benalla unit who is a machine operator from quarry, and who was able to point out things I was trying to find on the vehicle during pre-drive checks (which filter was which, for example).  This is another reason I enjoy these courses: People are happy to explain things to you. You meet good people in orange.

 

 

After the more theoretical side of the course we headed down to the Tallarook State Forest.  The State Forest centres around Mt Hickey, and it's a long climb up to Freeman camp where we started most exercises from.

 

 

Even though we were in the forest, I could still see the trees.

 

 

After a couple of laps of the forest, the day wrapped up and I headed for home.

 

 

The second day started with muster at the Seymour unit and then we drove back down to the forest for what would basically be a day of driving.  The first part of the day was an exercise in keepoing vehicles going though mud and water.

 

 

It was as awesome as it looked!

 

 

The second part of the day took us up and down Mt Hickey on a track so rough I would have hesitated even to try doing it on foot.

 

 

 

This was the view from the top of Mt Hickey.

 

 

It also has some rather cool communications and air navigation infrastructure.

 

 

I'm expecting a visit from ASIO any day now!

 

 

Up and down we went.  I'm proud to say I managed not to wreck the Patrol!

 

 

Well, I'm happy to say that I'm now accredited to drive under operationally.  I'm proud of that, mainly because it's one more way of showing that I'm not in fact a complete lightweight.  The more I can do, the more I can help people.

 

 

 

One more thing that I would like to do in the wake of this weekend is get a map and a compass and do an exercise on map and navigation from one end of the forest to another.  Maybe even overnight if I leave it till spring.  I could get used to an outdoor life!

 

 

Having typed this, it's less textual than I'd planned.  Well, no matter.  I hope you liked the photos!