State Emergency Service

Have taken the step and, with my husband, have joined the State Emergency Service http://www.emergency.qld.gov.au/ses/ so that we can contribute to the community. We have begun the basic training which involves two nights a month, for approximately six months. It was a pleasant surprise to attend the first night of training and find that a night of "games" had been organised to help assimilate the newbies into the existing group. We were divided into four teams of seven and were set two tasks. My team's first task was to take a large volume of items including tarps, sand bags, eskies, shovels and much more over a roof, and then load them into a ute and drive a lap of the neighbourhood. The second task was a Search and Rescue. We had to search a large paddock for evidence (blue and white tags) which we found occasionally interspersed with lollies in medium length grass. After some time spent sweeping the paddock our group leader was told to open his envelope and read the instructions. Lo and behold, we were told the youngest member of our team had been bitten by a snake so we had to perform first aid and carry him/her out on a stretcher. It was a lot of fun and definitely helped break the ice.