In August I was privileged to attend and represent QMRS Team members as a judge at the 10th International Mines Rescue Competition held in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. The opportunity to Judge at an international event does not occur very often and having competed successfully with the QMRS Moranbah team at the 6th International Competition in the USA in 2008 and assessed at many Queensland and Australian competitions over the years, I believed this would be an excellent opportunity to expand my Mines Rescue knowledge, skills and friendships.
I can truly say that the effort involved in attending was well worth it. I was selected to assist and judge at the Underground Fire Fighting exercise along with a number of other passionate mines rescue team members and emergency response professionals from Canada, USA, and Peru. Over the course of the week of the competition I made some strong friendships and contacts which I know will assist us to improve our mines rescue capability in the years ahead.
With 27 teams from 13 countries and a number of those whose first language is not English, organisers of the event were very conscious of trying to ensure no teams were disadvantaged due to language interpretations – easier said than done. The team of personnel involved with the planning, logistics and running of this exercise were dedicated to providing a consistent, realistic and challenging scenario for all of the competing teams.
As usual I managed to be earmarked for the underground component of the exercise, where I was stationed for the three days of competition utilising CABA and a thermal image camera to judge in generally limited visibility at the live fire site along with 6 other judges involved in the underground component.
The exercise was very similar to the types of fire simulation exercise we would encounter at our competitions with this exercise held in an underground test mine (hard rock). The teams were required to deal with a number of hazards including isolation of electrical equipment, a fuel spill, limited visibility and to extinguish a live Class A timber fire.
After watching all 27 teams, I still believe that Queensland Mines Rescue personnel and team members who can apply the knowledge, skills, team work and mines rescue procedures that we are trained to do, are as capable as any other mines rescue team from around the world.
Congratulations to the Peabody North Wambo team from NSW Mines Rescue who achieved First place in the First Aid scenario and from all reports showed a high standard across all of their exercises. This result should give us all the confidence that with some hard work, dedication and commitment, Australian Mines Rescue team members have the ability to respond confidently to any situation should the need arise.
