Narrabri VRA’s vertical rescue skills ready when we need them

Included in Narrabri VRA members’ repertoire of skills is ‘vertical rescue.’

Vertical rescue is what it sounds like – the emergency retrieval of people from high and dangerous places.

“Members train regularly in vertical rescue along with an ongoing agenda of other rescue skill sets,” said VRA deputy captain Harvey Black.

The Narrabri community is fortunate to have the trained personnel on call to respond to ‘high and dangerous’ emergency situations.

And on Sunday night those skills were urgently sought.

Alongside its vertical training regime, the Narrabri VRA maintains a fully equipped Remote Area Vertical Rescue mobile unit at its Mooloobar Street rescue station, ready to respond immediately.

On board the mobile unit are cliff top winch apparatus, to lower and retrieve people, Stokes stretchers, ropes, harnesses and other safety equipment.

Ultimately, Sunday’s Mt Kaputar rescue mission involved 10 emergency services personnel, six VRA members – Jock Smith, Harvey Black, Chris Silver, Harry Smith, Will Charles and Megan Davies, two police officers, Sgt Alana Straney and Constable Gary Cook, and two Narrabri Ambulance paramedics.

They were at the incident scene, the windswept, cold and wet Mt Kaputar summit until late at night.

“It was blowing a gale,” said Harvey Black.

The recovery of the injured man took about five hours.

“It was 2am when we got back to the rescue station,” said Mr Black.

The VRA, actively supported by ambulance and police, employed their full inventory of vertical rescue gear.

“The dedicated vertical rescue trailer has everything we need in one place,” said Mr Black.

“And we used a lot of it.

“We were called at 7.21. By the time we got there it was 8.30.

“On the peak, the coastal weather was blowing a gale up the side of the mountain, in fog and drizzle. By the time the operation was all over about 12.15am, it was raining steadily.

“We took up an edge management kit so the VRA member could see over the side of the cliff and evaluate what was going on, putting himself in a harness and easing himself out to see.

“Then we used hauling systems with climbing ropes and the Stokes litter to extricate the victim.

“Two VRA members were lowered down.

“Two of the patient’s mates had climbed down to where he was and to keep him warm had taken their jeans off to put over him.”

“We fitted one of the ambulance paramedics and he went down as well and he spent quite a lot of time stabilising the patient and preparing him for transport.

“The patient was down about 20 metres in really unstable boulder strewn terrain. He was very fortunate not to have fallen further.”

VRA member Jock Smith who carried the patient back up in the Stokes litter, estimated there was a further 50 metres below him.

Meanwhile, the Narrabri VRA will host a further vertical rescue training weekend in June for VRA members from across the region.