On 10 February 2018, Loch Fire Brigade, one of the CFA road rescue providers, was going to demonstrate the practical tasks involved in performing an extrication.
This is an annual event done as part of the Korumburra Agricultural Show.
But just as their skilled rescue operators picked up the hydraulic cutters and spreaders to make the first impression in the donated car, they were paged to a car accident at Athlone.
The team handed the demonstration over to the SES unit on the same display site, packed up the gear and were on the road within minutes.
Arriving on scene some 15 to 20 minutes later (for those that are not aware, its not uncommon for some country rescues to travel for up to an hour to some calls), they were faced with what many of us in CFA and SES have confronted so many times.
Today, 20 May, the members were visited by Mattea and Julian, two of the five people involved in the two-car collision. The kids wanted to drop in and say thank you to the team that attended and performed the extrication. CFA members had to provide extensive initial first-aid and care to Julian, while attending ambulance paramedics concentrated on stabilising Matteo, who was in a pretty poor condition.
It was so rewarding to the members to see the kids climbing over the trucks and running around the station today, given the condition they were in the last time we saw them.