Stepping up to help doesn’t come without its difficulties and dangers, of course. Who do you report to when you want to help? How can you show the people in charge that you are capable, competent and willing? Whomever is running the operation really has too much on their hands to start looking at resumes and course reports from back in the day. Well, there may now be a solution.
Working with the blessing of the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM), Phuket Veterans ‒ formally the International Veterans Association, a social group made up of former military and emergency service personnel from around the world who are now living in Phuket ‒ have a ‘Crisis Response Team’ that are readying themselves and are willing to help if needed.
Over the past six months, with the help of First Aid Training Phuket Co Ltd, the volunteers have trained in and refreshed their first-aid skills. "It was clear from the beginning that there was some evidence of skill fade, but as a military veteran myself, I know that it is just a case of ‘remind, revise and repeat’ to get the team on the ball again,” said Jon Walsh, owner and director of First Aid Training Phuket.
Last weekend, some of the volunteers met up with a training team in Chalong to take part in a search-and-rescue training day. The training was focused upon self reliance and safety, as well as refreshing some skills that may have been forgotten and needed some practice.
“The volunteers were instructed and practised basic self reliance in the field, emergency ground-to-air signalling, selecting an emergency helicopter landing site, ropework and hill safety, moving casualties and how to use a spinal board, the aims types and basic techniques of SAR, dealing with a suspected scene of a crime, and a personal and team equipment presentation.
Also in good support of the training, Bangkok Hospital Siriroj provided a senior nurse and ambulance crew. They instructed the volunteers on the best ways to support the emergency medical services when they arrive,” said Jon.
Steve Pearce, founder of the Phuket Veterans, said, “This training is fundamental to what we are trying to achieve in support of our Phuket community. The last thing the authorities need during a crisis is volunteers getting in their way and giving them something else to worry about.
“Expats living on Phuket have lots of skills that may be dated, but their experiences are invaluable to us. To that end, in January we will be opening up training for non-veteran volunteers from across the island to attend a one-day training session with us.
“They would then be assigned to teams that could be called upon in the event of a disaster on Phuket. We are so lucky to have Jon from FAT-P and Kevin Mansfield on the training team. Kevin has just returned from running special leadership training in Australia and PNG [Papua New Guinea] for the Gurkhas,” Steve explained.
Andrew Purchase, who took part in the training last weekend, said of his experience: “The training was pretty laid back and not at all stressful like I had expected. I come from an Aussie volunteer emergency service background and had never done anything like this before. I would recommend to anyone to come along to one of the training days.”
Phuket Veterans will take part in a four-hour qualifying exercise in December. If you would like to volunteer for the training in January, or you would like to know more about Phuket Veterans, visit www.phuketveterans.com or leave a SMS message on 089-5870819. Participants do not need to be a veteran or a former member of the emergency services to volunteer for the CRT/SAR induction training.