The life-saving skills of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, Ambulance NSW and the Dubbo Volunteer Rescue Association have been boosted thanks to a recent collaboration.
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The three organisations met recently for a training day at the RFDS Eastern Section's Dubbo base, where they undertook a simulated rescue.
RFDS emergency services team leader Peter Brandt said the exercise aimed to build on the skills of the organisation when working on incidents with vehicles. It not only tested the abilities of those involved but also enhanced the RFDS's ability to support the community during a car crash.
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The collaboration started a couple of weeks ago with a meeting between RFDS and NSW Ambulance.
"In small rural towns sometimes resources are short and then both agencies could benefit from each other there. For the RFDS team it's good to get more involved in jobs and for NSW Ambulance it's another way to get a doctor on the scene without getting a helicopter from Sydney or from Orange," Dr Brandt said.
There were two scenarios undertaken on the day. The first was a learning exercise where each step was explained as it was undertaken.
After that came a more intense scenario. There were two cars on top of one another, each with a mannequin inside to stimulate an injured patient.
The VRA rescued the patients from the car, the paramedics provided the initial treatment and then the RFDS doctors took over for the advanced intervention. Each team brought their own set of specific skills to the scenario.
There were three new RFDS doctors involved in the exercise and Dr Brandt said at the beginning they were quite scared. If you've never been close to a car crash or the hydraulic rescue tools it could be quite intimidating at first, he said.
"I think in the second run we mixed new doctors and some of our current doctors and it went quite well. You could see they had improved as a team," Dr Brandt said.
"They rescued two patients who were trapped in a difficult situation in 45 minutes. 45 minutes obviously sounds very long but complicated scenarios can take longer."
Dr Brandt said he was quite happy with the outcome of the day.
It's expected to be the start of an ongoing collaboration. A similar training exercise will likely be held again in February.