“The Danger Zone” (2008)
Wow, I just had the greatest fourteen and a half hours. I was asked by Joy Sylvia, from Volunteering South Canterbury to assist the emergency response organization run a simulation of a major natural disaster striking our region.
Firstly I was taken to a Civil Defence building where I was to simulate a broken leg and a crush injury and then be extracted from the building through holes punched through the walls by emergency personnel with sledge-hammers. I was successfully removed from the ‘danger zone’ and pulled up a small hill to waiting medical staff in the comfort of an evacuation sled.
Secondly I was taken to a site off Cains Terrace, where I had crashed a wheelchair down a bank behind some buildings, through an electric fence, and having a spinal injury, lapsing in and out of consciousness. With a serious chest injury added, and stray electricity, oh, and a gas leak. I was really getting into it by this time, hamming it up and doing my best to be a convincing patient.
Next myself and some other volunteers were taken to number two Warf, where five of us were hidden around the ‘stricken’ vessel with various injuries. I had a badly fractured leg and a head injury. Once again I made the most of my limited acting abilities, being hard to find because of the head injury, and trying to get out of the position I was in to find my rescuers, generally being a cantankerous patient.
After the boat adventure we all, volunteer victims and trained rescue personnel, sat down for a bang up feed at about 3:30am. Then I was taken with Chris from Ashburton Civil Defence to another accident site, this time where a car was pinned under a collapsed building. Once again, I had another broken leg, and was extracted through a hole cut with a power saw through the iron roof. Chris was injured more than I, and the rescuers even had to cut the door off the car to get him out.
That was all the team would let me do and I called it a night, at 8:30am on Saturday 15th after starting at about 6:00pm on Friday 14th of September.
It was an absolute pleasure to help the rescue personnel hone their skills, and I offer a great many thank you’s to Joy Sylvia for asking me to join in, and would gladly help out again in the future. I was so pleased to see how proficient and professional the rescue staff are, having teams involved from South and Central Canterbury, Invercargil and Nelson. I was also struck by how vulnerable and isolated we are here in South Canterbury, and how in the event of a natural disaster we will have to rely on our own skills. I for one am glad we have so many people training for a positive outcome from any such eventuality.