Kalgoorlie Mines Rescue Competition

Kalgoorlie Mines Rescue Competition

October 31, 2012
Western Australia, Whole of Mine

The Saracen Emergency Response team, jointly manned by PYBAR, competed in the MERC competition held in Perth, Burswood Park, placing overall second from a strong field of 11 teams.


The competition, held over the first weekend in October, tests skills and knowledge so that if an emergency occurs on site, staff are trained and ready to deal with the situation and know exactly what to do under pressure.

The team is made up of members from across the Saracen operations, including underground, surface and processing. Saracen engineer Matt Fitzgibbon (who is working with the underground PYBAR crew) and Rob Belgrove (a PYBAR tele-remote bogger operator) represented PYBAR and the Red October Underground Site in the Saracen team.

The competition scenario was a confined space rescue, involving an injured worker trapped inside a pipe (simulated by Laddertube). The teams had to locate the injured person, don breathing apparatus to extract the worker to a safe atmosphere and hand them over to an ambulance crew. The challenge required that teams use battery operated hydraulic ‘jaws of life’ equipment to rescue the trapped worker.

The Saracen ERT team has been training for the past three years in all areas of emergency response and just prior to the competition trained very hard completing several intense training scenarios.

“Through our training and the experience gained from the competition we are much better prepared for a real life incident in a mining situation. These competitions help us refine our skills and to think clearly under pressure” says Rob Belgrove.

In addition to the overall second place, the Saracen ERT team was awarded first place in the fire fighting and BA section, with Captain Matt Fitzgibbon being awarded best captain of the competition.

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