The latest and greatest training segment hit us the past two weeks. The subjects varied from marine navigation and rescue, land search and rescue, and minor bits of ropework that may be needed in all incidences. The training culminated in our being divided into 5 different groups of 5 people, then placed on call for 48 hours.
During the 48 hours, we were called out at all hours, whether it was the middle of the night or in the middle of a meal, and expected to handle the emergency accordingly with, in some cases, limited resources.
It was interesting waking up in at midnight to find out there was a mtn-biker in the woods, ~1km along a trail, with a broken leg, ribs, and possible head/neck injury. The only option is to shake the cobwebs and do the best that you can...locate, package, extricate, transfer to EHS. Pretty fun exercise, all in all!
Other scenarios had missing persons (involving a search), stuck hikers on steep hillsides, forest fires threatening to obliterate an entire island park (evacuate!!!), and a missing kayaker that was located under an ice floe... It was a very real introduction into what you will expect to face as a warden in a national park. In my case, a lot of these scenarios were similar to things that I had seen with BC Parks or with Whistler Ski Patrol. Gotta love previous training to give you a bit of an insight to what to do in an emergency!
Not much is left to do in Jasper. We'll be writing an exam tomorrow, then packing up and shipping off to Chilliwack to resume our law enforcement modules. Unfortunately, there will not be many photos of the training in 'wack as it is in the RCMP training grounds and pictures are not allowed.
Not related to the training, but related to my well-being, Jen was able to make it out from Squamish for St Paddy's Day. We met up in Banff, along with brother Jeff and friend Dan, and worked the Irish pubs. There were sightings of Tom Cruise, as well as Captain Saskatchewan.
There will be pics attached to this story, as soon as Matt can provide assistance...thanks, Matt!
Hope everyone is doing well and I'll see you along my travels!
Chris
2 comments:
Chris-
Nice Blog... you can check out what we did after gradutaing last year at this site:
http://parkwarden2006.blogspot.com
If you have a moment ask Sean Cox to contact me in Terra Nova:
newrg1999-free AT yahoo DOT com
So... no Depot for you guys... I guess we were the last "hard" class... (old army joke, every class claims to have been the last hard class)
Have fun in Chilliwack and PA
-Jeffrey St-Pierre, Terra Nova National Park
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