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014 // Dr Paul Luckin is an expert on human survivability
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Dr Paul Luckin is an anaesthetist, with a very unique background.
As an authority on human survivability he’s a medical advisor to the Police Search and Rescue teams and the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (that’s AMSA), providing time-frames for human survival during Search and Rescue operations.
He teaches the medical aspects of Search and Rescue, and is on the directing staff of the National Police Search and Rescue Managers Course.
A humble and highly trained specialist clinician and expert in search and rescue, he has served as a Captain in the Royal Australian Naval Reserve in Bougainville, East Timor, in the Resuscitation and Retrieval Team for the victims of the first Bali bombing, and in the first foreign medical team into Banda Aceh following the 2004 tsunami, and much, much more.
In 2015, he was made a Member of the Order of Australia, AM, for significant service to the
community through emergency medicine, and he joins me today…
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Transcript
Introduction and Trigger Warning
00:00:00
Speaker
The following episode touches on subjects such as trauma, mental health and suicide that some people may find triggering. Please, take a sec and consider who's listening and that includes you. And remember if you need to chat things through, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit beyondblue dot.org.au
00:00:27
Speaker
Rescued is a podcast of conversations with rescuers and those who've been rescued. It's about the lessons we learn about ourselves, the places we go and why, without judgment or shame, to help us have better adventures, manage risk and deal with the unexpected.
Dr. Paul Luckin's Background
00:00:47
Speaker
Dr Paul Luckin is an anesthetist with a very unique background. As an authority on human survivability, he's medical advisor to the police search and rescue teams and the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, that's AMSA, providing timeframes for human survival during search and rescue operations.
00:01:10
Speaker
He teaches the medical aspects of search and rescue, and he's on the directing staff of the National Police Search and Rescue Manager's course. A humble and highly trained specialist, clinician and expert, he served as captain in the Royal Australian Naval Reserve in Bougainville, East Timor, in the resuscitation and retrieval team for the victims of the first Bali bombing, and in the first foreign medical team into Bande Ache following the 2004 tsunami, and much, much more.
00:01:43
Speaker
In 2015, he was made a member of the Order of Australia, AM, for significant service to the community through emergency medicine. And he joins me today.
00:01:55
Speaker
Hello, Paul. It is so great to have you here. Thank you so much for joining me.
Childhood and Influences
00:02:00
Speaker
Let's kick off by telling me a little bit about Paul as a young man in terms of the the ways that you connected to the bush or to wild places and and how those places and experiences made you feel. I was incredibly lucky. I was born in in africa South Africa. and My parents were teachers. Every school holiday, they'd put us in the back of a car and we'd go to a game reserve. and Just about all of the game reserves in sort of you know southern Africa.
00:02:31
Speaker
So we spend countless hours and sitting at a waterhole watching an elephant come down to play in the water and sitting watching lion ah at at a kill and um ah watching birds and so on, and or driving around the game reserve. So I grew up with this incredible love of just the quiet times and um watching wildlife and enjoying the the beauty of God's creation.
00:02:53
Speaker
And it was just wonderful. um We moved to Tasmania when i when I was still a child. My father was a life-saving instructor in Royal Life Saving. We'd already been swimming since we were tiny kids. And so by the time I was 11, I was deeply into Royal Life Saving. Spent a lot of time in in the water.
00:03:14
Speaker
And I was just thinking that when I was ah about 12, I think, I saved up my pennies and I went and bought a small secondhand scuba tank and took myself down to the Derwent River in Tasmania in winter and tried to teach myself scuba diving. Can you believe that like that being allowed to do it in the first place? I don't think I ever got to water more than about four feet deep. but How old were you at that time? 12 or 13. And I survived. i mean like so many other miracles when i when I was a kid. But I spent more time in the water. Then I also joined St John Ambulance as a as a kid, an 11-year
Journey to Medicine and Rescue
00:03:53
Speaker
-old. I started learning more about people. I decided when I was 8 that I was going to be a doctor. No idea what was involved, but already decided that's what I was going to do. What is it that you think about being a doctor that attracted you as as the 8-year-old?
00:04:05
Speaker
probably the time the the amount of time I spent with my GP looking into the wounds and my knees when I fell off bicycles and eventually one day he looked and he said, now you see the white in the bottom of that knee? And I said, yeah, he said, well, that's the bone. and If you start going any further than that, we're going to have major problems. speaking Oh, and the wonder in those days of the hot mustard poultices, oh, they were great things.
00:04:28
Speaker
But I was so fascinated by what he was doing that I decided I was going to be a doctor. No concept of what was involved. Yeah, wow. Then, as a ah St. John cadet, we started learning some of the basics of rescue. In other words, real, you know, World War II civil defense stuff, tying people to ladders and blowing them out of bombed-out houses and that sort of thing. But it was great fun.
00:04:50
Speaker
What year are we talking here? What what but sort of? Mid to late 60s. And then i yeah when I was 16, started working as a volunteer in the Tasmanian Ambulance Service as a St. John Ambulance person. Then um um later on became a paramedic ah while I was studying meds and qualified as a as a paramedic.
00:05:11
Speaker
Went to Africa to study medicine, and um then once I'd graduated in medicine, moved to Durban from Johannesburg, and ah training as an anaesthetist, ended up in a mountain rescue team. And spent eight years in mountain rescue in the Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa. So again, I was out in the bush, rock climbing, hiking in the mountains, flying around those incredibly beautiful mountains in small military helicopters in all weathers, all times of the year.
00:05:42
Speaker
And it was just as much time as I could spend out in the mountains and if not in the mountains then in the game reserves. It was just the most wonderful way to spend time and learn my profession and become fairly highly trained in mountain rescue at the same time.
00:05:59
Speaker
Let me ask you, Paul, thinking back to your time in Tasmania, while you were doing St John's Ambulance as a Cadet and then as a volunteer and going through your teen years, were you still going out and having adventures in in the bush at that time?
00:06:16
Speaker
Not out in the bush, mainly in the water. um I was out um either and swimming, lifesaving, lots of time spent in the water and lifesaving, or down at the beach again doing lifesaving, and then later on um scuba diving.
00:06:31
Speaker
And later when I was a paramedic and then when I was a doctor, I used to dive with the Tasmania Police Search and Rescue Diving Team um because they were happy to have a doctor with them on their training dives. I was very happy to be with professionals who I could learn a great deal about the the niceties and the safety of diving with professionals. So it was but wonderful.
00:06:51
Speaker
So the world of paramedics and the clinical side of things can feel like, and this is from me as a a bit of an outsider, but feel like one sort of avenue and pathway that you can take. But then adding in this rescue component as well feels like another another tangent that you can you can choose to go on and and you chose that path. well What do you think drew you into that and what did you like about it?
Training and Teamwork in Rescue Operations
00:07:16
Speaker
i was When I was and a full-time paramedic, I was in the ambulance rescue squad. So we spent time not only cutting people out of motor cars, and but we also did um some training in cliff rescue because um as people from Hobart will know, there are beautiful big cliffs on the side of the Derwent River. So we spent time going down those.
00:07:35
Speaker
And in our professional training, we had done training in rescue. But then when I ended up in um Africa, I happened to be working as an intensive care registrar. And the um head of the unit took a phone call and he said, no, I have no time to to come and be the doctor in the mountain rescue team. But I have here a boy from the Antipodes with a background in pre-hospital emergency care and some training in rescue. Here you are, Luckin, take the phone.
00:08:01
Speaker
ah um I then joined the Mountain Club for South Africa, the Nistel section. Our responsibility is to provide a mountain rescue team for the section of the mountains in our area. so we had Think from memory, about 600 kilometers and and well over 100 peaks over 10,000 feet in our area of responsibility. So somebody who's skilled as a doctor is useless in in rescue until they've had a lot of very specific rescue training. In our case, it took us a couple of years to teach you the basics of um mountain rescue and enough climbing and so on. I had a head start in that. but But nevertheless, it takes significant training because you're no good in a rescue team just for your medical skills or just for the skill. you you have to be
00:08:43
Speaker
very committed all around. And the military. Tell me a little bit about that. I come from a military family. um We have many, many generations of senior officers in the military. And um I'd always wanted to join the Navy because of my interest in everything to do with the water.
00:08:59
Speaker
and again, because of some family history. So I joined the the Naval Reserve um when we were back in Tasmania and did all of the the appropriate courses. you know I joined at a time of high operational activity. So we sent on on deployments to a number of ah fairly unpleasant places. you You don't tend to send people like me to nice places because it's not places you don't need any citizens and surgical teams.
00:09:28
Speaker
So I've had a um ah very rewarding career in in the Navy. Well, it sounds like there's a synergy between the teamwork that happens seemingly organically and also a similar ah teamwork and ethos that happens within a search and rescue ah team, who are small teams often in in remote places. Can you talk to me a little bit about about that?
00:09:53
Speaker
That's absolutely right. that There is incredible synergy. and And what that depends again on is the ethos, the shared ethos and the the the shared um good accomplishing the task before looking after yourself is the prime thing. And then the fact that you have to have um a very high level of shared training so that you can put put together in a team, hopefully the team that you're used to working with, but um not necessarily.
00:10:19
Speaker
and And I don't think of it as a small team. I think of it as a very large team because um they're not only, in our case, in Mountain Rescue and a small helicopter, there'd be three rescue personnel, but there'd be a pilot and and an engineer and well as well who were totally dependent on. But in search and rescue today, the work I do with police today, I will get a phone call from police in any part of the nation or the South Pacific saying, um we have got the following circumstance.
00:10:46
Speaker
And they'll describe it to me in great detail they know me because i've taught most of them if if not all the people from yet at the various police courses at the national course of state courses. They have an understanding of what i know i have a deep understanding of what they know and because i've been the bunny up to my backside in snow or in a hot arid environment or the guy who's who's literally out on the limb.
00:11:10
Speaker
When they say to me, these are the difficulties of the search, I understand the terrain. So again, it comes back to common background, common ethos, understanding what they're doing. So I don't try and give them hairy, fairy advice. Oh, I really think you should do so and so. You know, in my opinion, you do so and so and so. I can say, listen, I understand the problems of being conducting a search and maritime environment in bad
Role in Police and Rescue Scenarios
00:11:31
Speaker
weather. And so much of what you do in search and rescue comes down to that shared ethos, the shared understanding of the training and of the work that you're doing.
00:11:39
Speaker
but also a balance of the risk benefits. ah If I'm advising police on how long I think somebody might survive, I restrict myself to the medical advice that they're asking me for, which is how long a missing person might survive in each of the scenarios that I might construct.
00:11:55
Speaker
I'm deeply aware of the fact that if I say I think the person might survive this long or that long in the following circumstances, that's something they're going to incorporate into the planning of their search and rescue, and that involves risk.
00:12:10
Speaker
and particularly if they're helicopter-borne, search and rescue personnel, and particularly if they're in um environments that are one extreme or the other, either hot arid environments or very cold environments. It doesn't temper the medical advice that I give them, but it does mean I understand, and when they're trying to discuss it with me, I'm in a position to discuss it on the basis of somebody who's been there and done that myself.
00:12:35
Speaker
So, it it feels like your role is one of those that for those maybe outside the rescue or the volunteer space or the emergency services space would have no idea that there's um someone who does this role that you do and Can you help us understand and explain your role? and And are you employed by a particular agency at the moment? Or how does this thing that that Dr. Paul Luckin does these days in in Search and Rescue, how does that work? And and then in practice, how would we see that on the ground?
00:13:11
Speaker
What will happen is that um when there is a search and rescue operation on in some of the operations where they feel it's necessary and appropriate, and police who know me will will phone and they will start by giving me a very detailed um account of what's happening. There is a pro forma that they use which sets out information on the incident, ah the scenario, the um environment, the clothing,
00:13:37
Speaker
ah the with ah a huge mess of of information and following that that laid down format. ah The officers will phone me and they'll say, you know, we'd like some information on time frame for survival TFFS.
00:13:49
Speaker
Then generally they'll talk for often 20 minutes, giving me as much detailed information as they've been able to gather. And then what I do is to construct the various survival scenarios appropriate to the circumstance, each scenario in which I think it's possible for that the missing person or people to survive. And then based on the information that they give me and and from what I know about it,
00:14:12
Speaker
I will try and give them an estimate of how long I think the person might survive in each of those circumstances. And and that's the point at which I stop. I don't tell them how to conduct a search or what to do with with a couple of of of family limitations. And they incorporate that in the search and rescue planning. And then as one possible survival scenario expires,
00:14:32
Speaker
They may well um change the search pattern, change the assets, how they distribute the assets, or indeed the assets that they use. And um then they'll come back to me and say, we've learned something more. How does that change the the scenarios and the time frame for survival in each of those? And then if I'm lucky, the guys phone me back, and I always ask them to, guys or girls, will phone me back and say, this is what we found. This is this is the outcome.
00:14:57
Speaker
And that's how I learned. I learned from being told, well, you're wrong in terms of so-and-so, you're right in terms of so-and-so. And the best phone calls I ever get are when I say, you know, at this stage, I don't think you're going to find a survivor for whatever reason, and I have to be able to justify that. And I get a phone call that says, Lacan, you're completely wrong. We found him or her alive. That is, I love being proven wrong.
00:15:22
Speaker
it's It's just wonderful. Being proven wrong is fantastic. So what all of that is based on um is um not just the the sort of experience as as a training in anesthesia, but huge experience of trauma. When I was training in medicine and then in anesthesia in Africa, it was a huge trauma load. I trained in the second biggest and then the biggest hospitals in the Southern Hemisphere.
00:15:45
Speaker
and understanding what kills people and understanding what allows people to survive in terms of the physiology and experience in hot environments, cold environments and extensive research and reading that goes with that to build up the the knowledge in those areas.
00:16:02
Speaker
is what underpins the um advice I give to police. Members of the public are often extraordinarily demanding and extraordinarily critical when they confront police and say, well, you know, why aren't you searching? And they may say, well, we have no idea where they are.
00:16:18
Speaker
and tell anybody where they were going. They didn't check in. ah They didn't have a plan. They're not carrying a PLV or an EPIRB. They may or may not have a telephone. If so, we can't get them and they haven't telephoned in. Where exactly on the face of this earth would you like us to start searching? yeah and People get very angry and very agro and then complain to the press and and and then it gets really nasty and then they complain to the politicians.
00:16:41
Speaker
who most of which can be avoided by following some of the few simple straightforward rules before you go out into doing into the wild. Before we get on to those kind of things, those rules, Paul.
Human Physiology in Extreme Conditions
00:16:55
Speaker
Can we jump back to your extensive experience in understanding ah trauma and what you said aligned there? Understanding what kills people and what lets people live? and In terms of the principles of human survivability, like what in terms of the the patterns and the common threads There are, for all of us humans, whether we be in a cold environment, a hot environment, in our house, on the road, in everyday life.
00:17:26
Speaker
The first thing it comes down to is a um it's a very detailed, very specific and a very deep knowledge of human physiology. um Understanding how you react to extremes of heat and extremes of cold. Knowing the physiology and the progression of um symptoms and the progression of behavior and the progression of, for example, mental degradation as you become cold or indeed as you become very hot.
00:17:51
Speaker
Understanding what happens when you are deprived of fluid, the various stages that you go through as you become dehydrated, the points at which you can do something to help yourself and the points at which you can't. um Take an example, as you become hyperthermic, your body is overheating and your core temperature is going up, quite early in the piece you lose the sensation of thirst.
00:18:12
Speaker
So people who are becoming dehydrated don't appreciate that they need to stop and drink. And in fact, usually don't appreciate that they are becoming hypothermic. For example, in the Kokoda track, as we as we left Kokoda heading towards Port Moresby, those of you who've done it will know you head out up a little slope called Heartbreak Hill.
00:18:32
Speaker
called heartbreak hill because a lot of people give up at that stage. And I think they give up more because they psych themselves out than because of of the physical difficulty. This, you know, this myth of, you know, the Kokoda is the hardest thing you will ever do in your life and you've got to be super tough and you need to train for a minimum of six months to be able to do it. yeah You need to be trained and you need to be fit. But people psych themselves out. So I headed off a heartbreak hill, setting out at a reasonable pace as as I tend to do.
00:18:59
Speaker
And um gradually everybody else passed me. Hey, I don't care. It's not a race. And then I ended up with a naval clearance diver walking with me. And I returned to me and said, it's all right, sir. One foot at a time.
00:19:13
Speaker
And I cracked up laughing because I realized that he could see I was hypothermic and my mental capability was degrading. I could not recognize it. And that is one of the early characteristics of becoming hypothermic, overheating, as it is of becoming very cold, hypothermia. And that's one of the important lessons when you're with a group. You watch each other, comes back to teamwork, you watch each other because you don't recognize when your your performance is degraded.
00:19:39
Speaker
As you become um very hot, you start to lose your sensation of thirst and you forget to drink. You start to get some mental impairment as well. um Then you start to get perhaps a little bit of a headache. here Well, you know you often get a headache um and you start to get a little bit of nausea. The nausea is your gut telling you it's not getting enough um oxygen supply because you're diverting your blood flow to the muscles because you're exercising hard and you're fluid deprived.
00:20:07
Speaker
And the to really understand those things and understand the progression, it's incredibly valuable to have been there and done it yourself. You really understand if you've experienced it. um so a That kind of knowledge depends on a state and understanding the physiology. Then it depends on experience. And um knowing um what happens in trauma, how much blood loss you can stand, how much pain pain people couldn can stand, what they can do with various types of injury is very informative in a search and rescue context. Again, not because you've read the textbooks or but you think, you know, you this should be able to happen.
00:20:45
Speaker
but because you've seen it so many times. And in my case, I'm dealing with huge trauma load. We looked after everything from and stab wounds, gunshot wounds, people who've been run over by trains, disembowelments to stabbed hearts and so on. You really get an understanding of what human physiology can take, where the endpoints in survival are, and what you have to do to try and keep those people alive. And by extension, what those people in any kind of search and rescue operation what they need to do to be able to stay alive. That in turn feeds into the information, and the advice that you can give people and that I can give to police in terms of how you might help to keep people alive in the in the search and rescue operative environment. And and the the military experience and the the um experience in lifesaving um all comes back to to be tremendously valuable.
00:21:38
Speaker
Massive thanks for the support from the team at Patti Pallon, who since 1930 have been leaders in travel and outdoor adventure. In fact, did you know that Patti himself, a member of the Sydney Bushwalkers Club, was a volunteer in the original search and rescue arm of the Federation of Bushwalking Clubs in New South Wales? Huh, nice one Patti.
00:22:01
Speaker
So Paul, if we think a bit more about those common threads of human survivability and the places that we find ourselves out in the bush, what are some of what what are some of the main, like the top five um things that we should absolutely have front of mind every time that we go out into the bush for an adventure, for some exploring, for some fun
Survival Tips and Strategies
00:22:25
Speaker
times? What do we need to keep in mind to ensure our own survivability?
00:22:30
Speaker
the The first thing is you've you've got a plan to survive. Don't plan to go and do an invention, but plan to survive. So that means that you let people know where you're going. You have a plan, preferably a written plan. I'm going on a five-day hike. These are my waypoints. This is where I expect I'll be at any given stage. I'll have communications up to the end of day one. Thereafter, if I'm in distress, it'll be an emergency signal from ah my equipment, from the personal locator beacon, or if I'm in a maritime environment, from from my EPIRB.
00:23:00
Speaker
So make sure that people know where you're going and they know when you're going to be back and where you will be but're coming out. So if you um don't come back, the search and rescue team at least have an opportunity and they have a chance to know where you are likely to be on any given stage. um And then um make sure that you have the appropriate equipment. So I've mentioned PLBs or in a boat and an EPIRB.
00:23:25
Speaker
If you're going into the mountains, you say, okay, well, what are the extremes of weather I might be confronted with? At the minimum, I've got to have um something that'll keep me warm. I've got to have something that'll keep me dry. I've got to have something that'll protect me from the sun. So um a good, broad-brimmed hat is an essential wherever you are, whatever time you are. And if it's warm clothing, then it's got to be and enough dry clothing. Because once you're wet and you're cold, your survival prospects go down tremendously.
00:23:55
Speaker
um ah So then the the next thing is that you're never alone. um Because if you're alone and you come into if if you're injured or you're lost, there's nobody to help you. There's nobody to get a message out. So next rule is never go alone.
00:24:09
Speaker
On land, you're going to be dependent on some kind of shelter to keep you alive. That may be you're using geographical features, maybe as you've planned, where there are places like caves and ravines and so on, where you can get basic shelter. and If you're in a maritime environment, it's making sure that within your craft, you have something that will protect you if it all tends to custard. If you're five miles out to sea and your mate breaks down or you run out of petrol and the storm comes up, you've got to have some kind of thing that that will protect you.
00:24:39
Speaker
Again, if you're in a maritime environment, the single most important determinant of survival is a life jacket. A good life jacket and a life jacket that is on you. A life jacket in the locker, which is where most life jackets spend all of their time, is a very, very little help to you. And people will spend um two or three hundred dollars on a reel and four or five hundred dollars on a rod and they'll spend a thousand dollars on a um on a Garmin and a a GPS and so on, on a fish finder, and they'll spend $50,000 on a boat, they won't spend $120 on a decent life jacket. And when when you're in the water and you're watching your boat drift away with your life jacket and your flares and your EPO bin, do you think you know I'd actually just had my life jacket on with my PLB in my pocket. I would you know be sending out a distress signal and the authorities would instantly know where I am and a search would be launched to come straight to me because I've got a 406 GPS enabled PLB which cost me $150. There goes my $50,000 boat and pretty soon I'll be dead.
00:25:44
Speaker
Yeah. So um but it's all about planning, it's all preparation. if you If you're going to be going out in the water, don't just have a life jacket and put it on, but jump into the water sometime with your life jacket on and say, gee, this is what it feels like in the water with a life jacket on. This would be a lot more comfortable if I actually had a ah body strap, um a crutch strap on the life jacket, so it's not riding up under my chin, but it's staying down on my chest.
00:26:11
Speaker
Gee, if only I had a bottle of water, a litre of water, strapped to the outside of my life jacket, that would increase my survivability in water ah considerably, especially if I swallow some salt water, I've nausea and vomiting. So think about it. and If you have a life raft, um practice getting in a life jacket from the water into your life raft.
00:26:31
Speaker
And people who survive um tend to have done all of those things. They've planned for survival. They've thought, what's the worst that can happen? The worst that can happen is I can be overboard in the water without a life jacket. Okay, well, lesson number one, I'll have my life jacket on. Nobody survives by having an accident in boating and then putting their life jacket on. And the Canadian Coast Guard statistics show that absolutely clearly. People who survive have their life jacket on before they hit the water.
00:26:57
Speaker
That doesn't mean they put it on at the last moment as the boat sinking means they have it on. So I know I'm sounding like a broken record, but it's it's all about planning and preparation. In any environment, if you are lost or in distress and you've got um a rescue beacon.
00:27:15
Speaker
Activated when it's obvious that you need it don't think well wait another few hours and see because that by then it's later in the day now it's getting dark finding you is very much harder launching a rescue mission at night is very difficult.
Emergency Communication and Rescue Activation
00:27:27
Speaker
um When you're in distress you're in trouble activate your beaker.
00:27:32
Speaker
If you've got a telephone, phone not your family or your friends or somebody else, which is what people usually do, phone OOO and say, I want police. um Don't go through the ambulance service. Go through the police and say, I'm lost. I need police rescue.
00:27:52
Speaker
And I say that because although you may not get a great reception from the triple-O operator who just wants to put put you through to police, too many times police take a call and there is an inherent delay between the police general police duties who do a fantastic job and I'm definitely not criticizing them. There's an inherent delay between that call getting through and the call getting through to police rescue.
00:28:14
Speaker
um And we have the horrible case of um a young boy lost in the Blue Mountains who phoned Triple O a number of times, got through to ambulance service, I think, six times, and over a period of time, progressively deteriorated and died.
00:28:30
Speaker
and But had that call gone so been transferred straight through to police rescue, um the local police in that area knew the area intimately, and there would have been a better chance, I don't know 100% chance, but a better chance of a search being launched. Certainly a search would have been launched earlier, and it's possible that there would have been a better chance of that that young boy surviving.
00:28:54
Speaker
So don't phone a friend. ah Don't phone family, as people more often than not do. Phone triple O and succinctly tell them what's going on and where you are. Start by saying, i am in I am completely lost. I believe I'm in such and such an area. I need to be rescued. I i sound as though I'm giving infantile advice, but people don't do it. Not at all. How do you feel when searches are called what feels like all the time, but you know regularly with people who have made the same mistakes that are being repeated? um you know it's Some of the things you've mentioned there, a real key one is
00:29:36
Speaker
yeah apart from the equipment and the planning and the checking the weather and the clothing, um is also is going alone. and That seems to be one of the most common things that comes across um the work that the volunteer work that I do that's the common factor. People are out there by themselves. How does how does this sort of recurring, how does that make you feel with the role that you do? Oh, it's sad more than anything else. Frustrated and sad because it results in so many unnecessar unnecessary deaths. And search and rescue operations, there is a significant number of people who are found too late once they're dead or never found at all. And a very large number of those are totally unnecessary.
00:30:20
Speaker
Thinking back on the, I i think 76 calls from police so far this year, I think um one of them relates to a group of people in a boat. One or two others may have been more than one person, but um all of the others or almost all of the others have been people who are missing by themselves. And if they were not by themselves, a very large number of those would never have happened. It is one of the absolutely basic rules. So when we went into the mountains in Africa, absolutely wonderful mountains, just spine-chillingly beautiful.
00:30:54
Speaker
But the minimum we ever had was three. So if one person was injured, um one could stay with them, and at least one could come down from the mountains to get a message out to us. That was the days before we had um EPOPs and PLBs and good mobile communications. So I would suggest on any anything, a minimum of two. And if it's a serious expedition, well, three is a nice minimum number to have.
00:31:21
Speaker
people have this conviction that ah they're smarter than anybody else in the world. They're not going to get into trouble. They don't have to worry about getting lost. They don't have to worry about getting injured. you know So what do they want in their tomb stamp? I was the smartest man who died in the bush.
00:31:37
Speaker
It's some and people just don't plan to survive. And perhaps that should be tattooed on everybody's forehead. Well, on the hand where they can see it. And to survive. I obviously sound as though I'm stressed and sad at that because it is stressful. It is sad because it's unnecessary. that People would just plan and prepare so much of what happens in search and rescue would never have to happen. And we wouldn't have the deaths that we have or the injuries.
00:32:04
Speaker
It's something that i've you know I spend and have spent many hours thinking about is that disconnect between the the what you want, this experience, this time in the bush to go and you know connect with nature, connect with yourself, connect with things bigger than yourself out in out in the bush. so There's that that dream that you know we see on social media, and then there's the reality. so the the The reality being that if you just do this plan to survive, like what's in the the TREK acronym, the T-R-E-K acronym, it it's not hard to to do it right, to set yourself up for success. But
00:32:42
Speaker
The dream and the reality has this massive disconnect within within culture, within the way, maybe as a society, we speak about the way that we we do go and venture into these places. and That hidden world of, unless you've been either employed by or volunteered or somehow involved or touched, unfortunately, by an incident by a search. You just don't realise this whole other world that's there because everyone just sees the then the beautiful shiny things. That's absolutely right. and and People say, but the whole point is I want to be by myself and I want to get out and experience nature.
00:33:27
Speaker
And I said, look, I understand that. But there are other ways you can do that. For example, two of you can decide we want to be completely by ourselves. We want to experience nature. But say, OK, we'll do the walk at the same time, but maybe 20 meters apart. We won't talk to each other. We won't share anything. We'll each have our own tent. We'll each have our own food. And provided you know every 10 or 15 minutes, you can just see that there's somebody there.
00:33:57
Speaker
you can each do your thing. You can have a wonderful time. You can not talk to another soul for the whole weekend or the whole three or four or five days. so But if you come to grief, somebody notices they haven't seen you in the distance for 10 or 15 minutes. and Obviously, the the more dense the terrain and the bush, you know the the closer you need to be. But having somebody who's aware where you are, and at the very least, you know perhaps twice a day, if you insist on being by yourself, if you cannot contemplate doing this,
00:34:25
Speaker
at least twice a day you know phoning and today fortunately a lot of areas do have mobile coverage and say i'm not at this specific location i'm at grid point so and so on my map i'm within sight of so and so i'm due north of so and so about a kilometre north Check in regularly if you have to be totally on your own. Think also of the safety of the people who are searching for you. Search and rescue is not safe occupation. um And one of the things I always say is if a circumstance can kill or injure you, it can kill or injure somebody else. So you if you're the person who's been killed or injured, remember the person who's got to come to look for you is exposed to the same dangers that have killed or injured you. And that's not really fair ah because you you haven't planned to survive because you haven't thought through it.
Staying Safe When Lost or Injured
00:35:13
Speaker
So let's imagine that we've found ourselves, and we haven't listened to Dr. Luckin, who said, please do not go out alone. And we find ourselves out alone, and something has gone wrong. We might be lost. We might have um maybe slipped down something, find ourselves injured, find ourselves, for whatever reason, we can't move from our position. Or we or maybe we can, but we can't get ourselves out of the situation we're in.
00:35:43
Speaker
What are some of the key survivability things that we should prioritize and look for to not only look after ourselves, but to make make it the best possible outcome for ourselves and for the search?
00:35:58
Speaker
First of all, ah hopefully you you have got a ah personal locator beacon with you. Activate the PLB. Number two in terms of survivability is um get yourself to a position where you have access to water if you are not carrying enough water to survive for an extended period. um And the next thing that you need is some kind of shelter. Now it may be a very basic shelter. It may be underneath the rock and overhang.
00:36:25
Speaker
or within some dense vegetation or within a hollow log. Lots of people have survived within a hollow log. If you are mobile within an area, if you're for example lost, which is the most common thing, find where there's water and when you find it, stay there. and next The next thing, once you're lost or once you're injured, stay where you are. Don't keep on moving.
00:36:46
Speaker
If you are, for example, in a an aircraft accident or if you're in an accident and for some reason you do move, be it to find water, to find shelter, very clearly mark where you're going. Now, that doesn't mean draw a line in the sand because the line in the sand doesn't last very long. It means take twigs or rocks and so on and make a big, broad, clear arrow. If you can, leave a note saying, this is what I'm trying to do and date and time it. Don't just leave a note.
00:37:14
Speaker
say when you were there, so we have an idea of how far you may have moved and in which direction, leave very clear markings for the people who are looking for you. If you are in a motor car that goes out and gets bogged or broken down, don't leave the car because the car will invariably be found before you're found if you leave the car.
00:37:34
Speaker
There are lots and lots of things in a motor car, a broken motor car that you can use to help search and rescues. Take bits of of whatever it is, bits of coloured material, bits of your clothing and so on, put them up on trees or put them out in the open. A bit of coloured material, a bit of coloured cloth on a tree flapping in the breeze is a great thing for a drone or a helicopter to see or a fixed-wing aircraft to see.
00:37:56
Speaker
and If your car still has hubcaps, take a hubcap, put some of the oil or some fuel in it, and set it on fire. Plumes of smoke are not only seen from the air, but I've had more than one rescue where a helicopter pilot has not seen anything, but he has smelt burning rubber because somebody's set fire to a tire. And he's just flown in in decreasing circles until the the smell is strongest. And then said to the ground crews, that's where the smell is strongest. And they've gone there and found a missing person.
00:38:25
Speaker
break bits off the motor car, take the mirror from the inside, the mirrors from the outside, take shiny bits of the car, spread them out on the sand or hang them on something so that they move in the light. So the people in an aircraft see little reflective things on the ground or things moving um in treetops and so on.
00:38:41
Speaker
um use the bonnet of the car or the the um roof of the car or the lining of the car as shelter and at night shelter in the car both from the environmental conditions and from the possibility of marauding animals which is fairly uncommon in most of Australia.
00:38:58
Speaker
But there are a thousand things in a car. If your car is bogged and broken, don't worry about keeping the car alive. Worry about keeping yourself alive. And if you destroy the car in the process of using bits of it to make people find you or keep you alive, hey, the car gave its life in a very good cause because I promise you, the car is worth the car's life is worth less than your life. Absolutely.
00:39:20
Speaker
So use the bits of the car. The most important thing is stay still, find water, find shelter, and then make it possible for people to see you. And if you just made those few things at the start by planning and telling someone where you're going, and then staying on the route that you're planning as well, not changing changing course or changing plan, then your chances of survival and being found are much better.
00:39:46
Speaker
That last comment you made about changing plans is relevant not only on the ground, but when people go out on a boat, they say, I'm going to go for a boat. I'll be back at nine o'clock tonight, or I'll be putting into port at so and so.
00:39:58
Speaker
And then they decide to change their mind, and they don't tell anybody. They fail to arrive, and a search and rescue operation is launched. Now, it may be that the next day they're put into port somewhere else. They don't know that there's a search and rescue operation going on. and They're planning to be away for a week. Why should I phone home and say, hi, you know, I've changed plans on its own. So meanwhile, there's a search and rescue operation going on in the wrong area, because they've they've moved out of the area that was planned. So if you change your plans on land or or out in a boat,
00:40:27
Speaker
tell somebody you know phone a friend this is when you phone a friend and say i've changed plans i'm doing so and so and so and so so don't report me missing one and i don't know i don't come home tonight or i'll land at such and such report tomorrow That brings us to the end of part one of my chat with Dr. Paul Luckin recorded in September, 2024. As you can hear this interview, it is full of not only interesting insights into the world of search and rescue, but it's loaded with lessons and information that could help so many people.
00:41:01
Speaker
hit that subscribe button so you don't miss part two, which will go live in the first week of March with more behind the scenes stories from Paul. And we look at the question of what more can be done to help get these types of lessons into the broader community, to help avoid missing persons in the future. Thanks for listening. I really appreciate your comments and the questions that I see pop up on the Spotify app. So maybe check that out if you want to engage a bit and be a part of the rescued community.
00:41:31
Speaker
The rescued podcast is produced on the unceded lands of the Gondunga people of the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. I pay my respects to the elders past and present and acknowledge their enduring connection to and care for country. Special thanks to our sponsors Paddy Pallon. This has been a lots of fresh air production.