Today is the launch for the Thredbo Ski Patrol site, one done by donation of time from various sources from within the patrol.
Special thanks go to Leo Kesselring, the designer from Red5 and The Web Showroom for providing his time to making it look so good. The CMS system is open source and provided by CMS Made Simple on a mySQL back end using PHP.
ASPA has just launched their new site to help provide members of the Australian patrolling community with a better way of booking courses and accessing training material. The site also features competitions.
I just thought I would share this - a fine piece of marketing for the Australian National Surf Lifesaving Championships that just finished in Perth. A good bit of entertainment to boot.
It sums up the Australian way very well.
I have been on a course over the last weekend training on all the first aid for Ski Patrol. Its pretty hardcore, in Australia we are trained to nearly the same level as Ambulance Personnel or Paramedics. The course overview sheet levels me with a certain amount of scary things: Pain relief (Laughing Gas), Emergency Childbirth and Cervical Spine injuries. We are also trained in Defibillators and CPR. CLEAR!
On the hill we keep in contact using radios, and we have a load of codes to remember - things that we dont want the public to hear, such as type of inury, and I need a sled and a back board please. I discovered that 5150 is the term used by the American justice system for insane. Not much call for that on the slopes I suppose, but I might just remember it anyway. So we have 2 more weekends on this course, its heavy going especially all the stuff about biology, but its very interesting. They reckon that of all the rescue services in Australia - Ski Patrollers on average see more human trauma than any other, even the ambulance crews. I realised that apart from the fact its a great way to get out skiing, I have another motivator for doing this. When I was teaching skiing I had a very clean record of not having any kids sustain injuries whilst in my care. This was shattered one day in the US by one of my team going over a hump in the fun park too fast. I realised when I got to him that I knew nothing about what to do to help him. Waiting for a patroller to arrive and sort him out seemed to take forever, and it was such a relief when they did arrive. So I hope by doing this I can help some people out and relieve a few stressed out instructors.My last weekend was spent mostly messing around in boats setting up cans and buoys for the Manly Surf Carnival. Its the largest club carnival in the country, with surf clubs travelling from all the Australian States to compete. Clubs from as far away as Perth, and North Queensland. The only other event of its kind that is larger is the national championships.
Its a hard slog, we started at 5am, as the courses have to be laid out by about 6.30 for the rowing boats, and then the other courses for the Iron Man, ski races, swimming and board paddling need to be set up. There was some decent surf too, so it made driving quite fun. The best news of course is that Manly won by a large margin. Something like 200 points ahead of second place with 230 odd. Woop!We started 10 weeks ago, and they passed this week.
Myself and Lee started teaching the Inshore Rescue Boat course at Manly a while ago and this weekend the guys and girl passed their exam with flying colours. Congratulations are due to Tim, Alex, Tamsin, Glen, Michael, and Pete.
That also means that Lee and I have a 100% success rate in passing our candidates! Brilliant!
I have just returned for the last time this winter from Thredbo. It was a great weekend with 30cm of fresh dry snow - I really cant complain about knee deep powder 4 weeks before the end of the season!
The Ski patrol exam was pretty good, I managed to pass the mountain knowledge bit - pretty good after only 15 days of skiing there! The Akja test was a fail, but at least I dont have to wait a complete year to retake it. Over the summer we learn about chairlift evacuations and advanced first aid similar to that of ambulance personell.
With that we change seasons and I start on the beach again going for Lifesaving and IRB recerts this week. The end of september brings the official start of the lifesaving season. I am really looking forward to some summer heat and barbecue's!
We went off to Thredbo (www.thredbo.com.au) last weekend for some skiing. We flew to Canberra then drove the 2 hours to the mountains.
Its an odd flight, you take off and go up for about 10 minutes. Then the drinks come round, and while they are doing that, 15 mins into the flight, the captain says we are preparing to land. 30 mins later and you are down on the tarmac again. Shortest flight I have ever been on. The snow was excellent, apparently the best start to an aussie season since 1981! Heidi had a couple of lessons, on this the latest skiing adventure. I took a ski test with the Thredbo Volunteer ski patrol and was accepted for training, so I have to go skiing every other weekend for the rest of the season. bummer. Its pretty cool though, I get to learn all about mountain rescue, and taking people on the blood wagons. So I am looking forward to having a crack at it. We stayed at the Black Bear Inn, and thanks to Alan and his staff, had a great Christmas meal and a lovely stay. Enjoyed the photos, and keep watching for the next installment.As I sit here writing this we have just come off the back of the second long weekend in one month. April is the almost mid year break for Australians, getting Good Friday and Easter Monday, then a bank holiday Monday for Anzac weekend. Even better than that, we get another day off on the Queens birthday. Go figure.
I guess the other reason that this free for all holiday fest happens is that we have sadly lost Daylight Savings, which means no sooner than you leave the office the world around you is pitch black. If you want more daylight, you have to get up at 5.10am for sunrise. Boo to that!
In fact the DST switch seems to have affected quite a number of things. The weather seems to have been flicked on the same depressing day, Its now a crappy 17-20 degrees, cloudy and grey. Its even started to rain! The kids are now back at school, and no one is on the beach at seemingly any time of the day. Even worse they have disappeared altogether! All this occurs because some farmer wanted to make sure his sleeping pattern coincided with the cows milking times.
Hey, it could be worse, I suppose we might get some snow down in the mountains, and that means a bit of skiing!
In the mean time I am busy with my IRB (Inflatable Ruescue Boat) course with Lifesaving, and that's a whole lot of fun, crashing over the waves and plucking victims out of the water before coming in and beaching the boat at the greatest possible rate.
Saturday was the Bonze Medallion exam, after 6 full weeks of learning CPR, First aid and lifesaving in the ocean. It was 3 beaches up from Manly at Long Reef and Heidi came along to the event as official photographer, her efforts are displayed in the Lifesaving Exam album.
As you can see I have a pair of Manly Speedos (or skimpies in Aussie). I bought them because our instructor (Greg) kept telling us we would save about 30 seconds on the swim leg of our exam. They are very fetching, I think you will agree! We had to do a 200m Run, then 200m Swim out to sea and back, and 200m run all in 8 minutes. Its a bit of a killer, when I came out from the swim I was so close to being sick ala Shrewsbury-Regatta-on-a-Sunday-morning style (for those DMU rowers reading this). The rest of the morning was spent doing a scenario, where the examiners set up some patients and we had to go and rescue them and treat them by whatever means necessary.
The whole of my course passed, about 16 of us, so we are all pretty happy, and went back to the club for a barby and a few beers after. We had a little presentation in which we received our uniforms and patrol rosters and we get our actual bronze medallions in a month or so.
Some of us went out on patrol the day after and had a great time. Rescues we made included: a few blue bottle stings, some people getting stuck in a rip, a girl hugging the sharp end of a surf board, and a looney larger lady on a body board. I might add that this was a quiet Sunday afternoon!
