The Snowy Monaro District Rural Fire Service is hosting a comprehensive four-day aviation rescue crew training event, commencing on Thursday, March 27 and concluding on Sunday. This event, coordinated by the New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSW RFS), is set to enhance the skills of volunteer and staff aviation rescue teams.
PHOTO: Winch water rescues will be conducted over Lake Jindabyne.
The training involves about 50 participants who are certified in aviation rescue, focusing on both land and water winch rescue recertification. Tova Gallagher, Coordinator for Aviation Rotary Wing, NSW RFS, described the initiative: “We are doing aviation rescue crew training. We have in total 50 volunteers and staff in the aviation rescue crew who do helicopter rescue, especially trained with a full cert three in aviation rescue. From that training, we’re doing four different training events, so there will be be multiple training events happening concurrently.”
PHOTO: Multiple agencies will be involved in the collaborative training exercises aimed at making scenarios familiar.
Residents in Jindabyne and surrounds might see the NSW RFS crews flying around the region, conducting alpine search and rescue and floodwater rescue training operations. Ms Gallagher explained that the training features realistic scenarios to prepare participants for “working in environments that they’re not familiar with, for example they’ll be doing their water winch rescue this week here on Lake Jindabyne.”
“We will also be using Kosciuszko National Park, given that we’ve been dealing with recent searches in this area, we thought it was very timely to come down and do specific training on working in an alpine environment where bushwalkers can go missing.”
PHOTO: NSW RFS are ready to take to the skies of the Snowy Mountains for a four day training event CREDITS: NSW RFS
Numerous local organisations are collaborating on this initiative, including Jindabyne Police, the State Emergency Service (SES), Marine Rescue, and NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service. Ms Gallagher emphasised the importance of such collaboration, saying, “it’s giving our people an opportunity to do training scenarios where they can practice their skills, but practice them in a real life environment, working with the people that they would work with if they came up here to undertake search and rescue operations.”
This training ultimately benefits the broader community through enhanced response capabilities in various emergency scenarios with Ms Gallagher thanking Snowy Hydro for allowing lake access, and the Jindabyne Aero Club, for supporting such vital training events.