For the second time in two weeks a substantial rescue effort is underway to retrieve patients from a 4wd rollover in the Victorian High Country as I type.
Easter last year was not a lot different when two were killed in the Wonnangatta on Hearns Spur in a troopy rollover. Some of the comments below apply to trail bike riders, horse riders, bush walkers and other bush users too.
The resources required to undertake these exercises are not insignificant. Helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, 4wd ambulances, rescue teams,
police 4wds, CFA & DSE. Radio communications are difficult at best in this terrain even for emergency
services, and response times are understandably poor due to distance and terrain, which can impact heavily on patient survival rates.
People travelling in these areas need to understand that they are undertaking some of the more difficult 4wding Australia has to offer and in many
places inexperience or poor decision making skills lead to serious injury or even death and expensive recovery operations of vehicles, patients and bodies. Something as seemingly inconsequential as an incorrect gear change or poor gear selection, which in sand or flat country has no consequence at all, can in the high country on a steep track, render control of the vehicle to the gods in a split second. The outcome can be as catastrophic as the descent can be quick and there's not much give in a big mountain ash. A 4wd rollover in this country is often all the way to the valley floor or creek below, which may be several hundred metres.
4wd recovery undertaken in many situations carries the added risk that remoteness brings. Winch cables breaking or flying shackles can cause death or injuries serious enough to cause it even when help is close by, add two to three hours to get access to the patient and the prognosis becomes poorer by the hour. The human body only compensates for serious injury/blood loss for a relatively short time without advanced care.
Don't be thinking that if you have a four wheel drive that it is a magic carpet, nor that you necessarily have the ability to take it where ever you so choose. If you are new to this fantastic pastime do a course, hell, do two or three (& include a
first aid course). Then travel with experienced people for your first few trips in to what can only be described as god's own country, the high country.
Always travel in groups where ever possible. I see far too many solo trippers in this country. If you are on your own and in trouble there is no one to call for help, the response time for an epirb rescue is many more hours than a direct call too, if that's what you rely on. An air search of 10-20 square kilometres of heavily timbered mountainous country is a long search.
Pay your ambulance subscription before you go. The helicopter costs $2500 to start up and $45 a minute thereafter in addition to whatever else is sent. The current job they are on has been going for over 2 hours now with two ambulances, a helicopter and an aeroplane.
As a final note, learn how to read maps
well, know where you are at all times, learn to not only read your GPS but relate that location to a map using both Lat/Lon and UTM references. Travel with good maps of the area and some form of communications in your group other than terrestrial mobile or UHF, they don't work up here. (UHF is okay for convoy work but not getting help). It staggers me how many 4wders who travel in these areas with out any of the knowledge or nav equipment.
If you have a HF or Satphone and do call for help it will come much faster if we can pinpoint exactly where to send it.
Take care out there and enjoy it. It's a great place but it needs to be treated with the respect it commands. We are but mere mortals.
Dave