By Callum Ludwig
The Wandin Fire Brigade is calling on the community to help supply any old, unused cars for the purpose of training their specialist Road Rescue team.
Any donated cars will go a long way in helping brigade members when they turn out to real scenarios, with a high chance of dealing with serious injuries and potential deaths.
Wandin Fire Brigade 4th Lieutenant Phillip Smith is often the rescue controller for the brigade’s road rescue incidents and said they are one of only 23 brigades in the state that does road crash rescue.
“Obviously, we’re all volunteers and to keep our skills up requires frequent training, we train at least once a month for road crash rescue and to do that we’re heavily reliant on old cars that no one cares about anymore and that can be cut up,” he said.
“Yarra Valley Towing is very, very, very supportive of us and provides vehicles for us constantly but the supply is always dependent on who happens to crash their car and it gets written off by insurance companies.”
Monbulk CFA is also a principal Road Crash Rescue provider, as well as the Healesville, Upper Yarra, Lilydale, Emerald and Knox SES units.
Mr Smith said the cars are used in lots of different training scenarios.
“We’ll go through methodically and teach some of our newer members techniques that we use to take the car apart using our equipment as well as do cross-brigade scenarios where we’ll set it up on the side of the road or on a private property and simulate an actual incident,” he said.
“Vehicles that have been involved in accidents are obviously really good for that because it simulates the damage but obviously not many people have damaged cars sitting around, but for any old car we can give it one more last purpose in life before it goes off to the scrap heap.”
The Wandin Fire Brigade responds to road rescue incidents from Kilsyth up to Woori Yallock and out to Gruyere and Yellingbo. They can also respond further abroad to more critical rescue incidents such as a cliff rescue incident in June this year near Taggerty.
Mr Smih said Wandin Fire Brigade currently has 23 qualified road crash rescue members, with a minimum crew of five required for any responses.
“There are about 13 or 14 different brigades that we will respond with for rescue and it’s really, good for us to get that opportunity to get to know the members of those brigades in a less time-critical situation where we can meet and greet and get to know faces,” he said.
“Then when it comes to the real deal, we might not know everyone, but at least we know some familiar faces where we can, it makes it easier to talk with each other and get the job done without being total strangers.”
The Road Rescue Unit at the Wandin Fire Brigade has been in action since 1963.
Anyone with cars they can donate to the brigade is encouraged to contact Yarra Valley Towing at 1300 TOW 247 and arrange for it to be picked up free of charge.
