Transcript
Speaker: Hey folks, it's Caro here from the Rescued Podcast. Before we get started today, i wanted to share the really exciting news that we've now passed 100,000 downloads from just episodes.
Speaker: Now that blows my mind and reinforces my belief that stories are what hold society and community together. It's how we learn, laugh, cry and hopefully become better humans.
Speaker: A huge thanks not only to Paddy Palland for helping out with the costs that come from doing this, but also to the master, Posty Dave, for his immense skill and patience in the editing. Thanks, mate.
Speaker: But also a massive thanks to the support, the comments, the reviews, and even the people that I just meet out randomly who tell me that they've listened to an episode and it's really stuck with them. um Yeah, that means a whole lot. So thank you so much.
Speaker: And not only Pettys supporting me with the costs, but they're also cheering on the fabulous rescued listeners by giving away a $50 gift card and an Algen bottle for every episode.
Speaker: This episode's prize goes to Carly JB, who was so engrossed with Ross's story in the last episode that she didn't hear her washing machine flooding her laundry.
Speaker: All you need to do to be in the running is simply leave us a rating and review on either Spotify or Apple Podcasts and then jump into the entry form in the show notes to enter.
Speaker: Oh, and Carly JB, please get in touch with me via that form so I can get you your prize. Now, on to the episode. Rescued is a podcast of conversations with rescuers and those who've been rescued.
Speaker: It's about the lessons we learn about ourselves, the places we go and why, without judgement, to help us have better adventures, manage risk and deal with the unexpected.
Speaker: When we think about the people who turn up when things go wrong in the wild, we probably picture helicopters, ropes and flashing lights. What we might not picture is a surfer-climber from Coolum Beach who spent his younger years messing around sea cliffs and canyoning in the Blue Mountains, and who now leads and trains others in some of the most technically demanding rescues on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.
Speaker: You know, there's been a lot of chatter about the increase of accidents on Queensland's Glasshouse Mountains and and places like Mount Barney in recent years. And today's guest is clear that it's never just a Queensland Fire Department operation.
Speaker: There's a big role played by others, like volunteers from SES, locals, traditional owners, ambulance and police. And he's generous in his respect for every one of them.
Speaker: This is an episode about preparation, consequence, and knowing where we sit, our competence as hikers, as adventurers, as well as the load on our rescuers.
Speaker: So if you've ever scrolled past a stunning image of a mountain and thought, oh, I want to go there, this one's especially for you. Here's my chat with Billy. It's so lovely to meet you today, Billy. And I'd love to start off this.
Speaker: Getting an understanding of how you came to be doing the work you're doing now. And before we even start chatting about what that work is and how it's so closely related to so many of us who love things in the bush and love going out for for adventures and getting into getting amongst it all What's your outdoor loves and how did you find yourself doing this kind of work? I've got a climbing background, Caro, and I guess it goes back to when I was a teenager. you know I started climbing when I was at school and then I kind of put it down for a little while and then I ended up ah i ended up working in
Speaker: in the eastern suburbs in Sydney. just I moved down there for a few years and I started climbing again on the sea cliffs down there. And then obviously from there I graduated up to the Blue Mountains and you know I was climbing and i was canyoning. I was doing a lot of canyoning up there as well. We're going down through Claustral Canyon and all the canyons all the time.
Speaker: i guess I guess that's sort of where it sort of reinvigorated my my love for for that. you i have My two passions in life are surfing and climbing, I guess. so And now i was working as a lifeguard ah for Waverly Council. i got i got the best of both worlds. I was surfing and just on my days off, if the surf was rubbish, I'd go climbing.
Speaker: Can you just tell me a little bit like what it's like to be in those places and how those places and those doing those things made you feel like, you know, why you were drawn and why you kept coming back to climbing and why you kept getting more into and into canyoning and spending time in these places? Yeah.
Speaker: Makes feel alive, you know, just to to describe what it feels like to be on the side of a mountain just enjoying something and to love it that much is really, really hard to talk about that to someone who doesn who who doesn't do that themselves because everything's breathtaking about it. It's just – the excitement of the climb, just being outside and doing stuff is just the greatest gift that we've got, you know, to be able to do that and to be able to live in an area where we can do that. You know, I can jump in my car and I can go 45 minutes either way,
Speaker: You know, and ah can be in great climbing areas. I can be hiking. i can i can go two blocks from where I live and I can be out in the surf. You know, that's just it's just fabulous. umm i'm just And that ah there's not a day goes past that I don't think about how lucky I am. And then to be able to do it for work,
Speaker: You know, you you might not get paid the greatest in the world, but I love what I do for work, you know, and it's just to be able to incorporate my job into my yeah to what I do what i what i do on my spare time. That's just a gift.
Speaker: So you're not in Bondi, you're not in Waverley, you're not in Sydney anymore. Where do you find yourself these days? Yeah. Coolum Beach. Coolum Beach. And so for those not familiar with sort of Australian geography, you just- 20 minutes south of Noosa, Noosa Heads, which is probably an hour and a half north of Brisbane. Okay. So we're up in Queensland. Yeah. What's the climate like up there? I would like to say that it's beautiful all year round, but we've had a fair whack of swag of rain this year. But most of the time, it's pretty good. I mean, even today, it's fabulous today. It's a little bit of a southerly blowing on it today, so the surf's not that great. But the outside air temperature is probably 23, 22, 23, which everyone up here is whinging about how cold it is. And it's June right now, so it's Australian winter. Yeah, not bad. The warmer temperature is still sort of like 21, so it's nice, you know.
Speaker: You mentioned there that you get to do these kind of activities we've just talked about, that climbing and that's, you know, whether it be on a mountain or canyoning, just hiking, being in nature, and you get to do it for work.
Speaker: So let's unpack that a bit. What do you actually do for work and who employs you and and how did that all come about? So I'm a firefighter with a Queensland Fire Department. My station I work at is I work at a Noosa fire station, which is yeah which is probably one of the most sought after fire stations in Australia. But it's taken me while to get there. But yeah, I am there. Okay, so if I think about, and this is from you know a punter's head perspective, is I go, oh okay, fire department. All right, so is it, you know, don't you just fight fires? You've just been talking about climbing and canyoning and and hiking and being being in the bush.
Speaker: what' how How do the two come to cross over? Okay, so obviously firefighting, we put fires out. Yeah. there Yeah, yeah so and I guess ah road traffic ah crashes and accidents, another big part of our thing. But you know our core business now has changed over the years. you know So we've had the fire service has had to develop along with that as well. And you know we've got the Glasshouse Mountains on our doorstep here, and we've got Brouillard, which is a big climbing area up in Gympie, just outside of Brisbane. you know On the Gold Coast, we've got Mount Barney, and we've got all the Gold Coast hinterland. So we've had to diversify
Speaker: with, I guess, with the population and what people choose to do. So probably one of our core businesses now is mountain rescue. On the Sunshine Coast, it's on the Glasshouse Mountains. We'll potentially do 100 rescues a year, between 60 to 100 rescues a year, depending on depending on what it is, and those rescues will be – They could be very, very simple ones, just helping people down, or they could go right to the other end of the scale like it has this year. We've had three fatalities, you know. So the fire service, 2016, we got called to a job on Mount Biwa, and it was your classic job. it had been raining for a few days, and there was two young fellas decided to go climbing up there to go for a hike. So as most of your people on your website would would know, and the people who listen to you know, Australia's bushwalking grades, they go from sort of like one to five. Okay, five being the, you know, you you need to have some skills.
Speaker: You know, you need you need to be prepared for that. And after that, we started to go into the Eubank climbing side of things. So there was a fellow who was a climber, Eubank, and he he developed this system on grading. So in America, they use different, and Europe, they use different. So it's like- R4 and 5AB or 1, 2, 3. It goes up to 10 sort of thing. Depending on on what you're doing, it could be trad climbing or sport climbing. so But in Australia, we use this system and it's basically great. It goes from 1 up to high 30s, high 30s being a blank wall that you look at and just go, i need a ladder. Yeah. or spiderman Yeah, yeah, that's it. Yeah. You need to be world-class climber to be climbing at that. So anything over, I would say, sort of like 17 to 21, you know, you you're starting to get into the grades of being a good climber. And anything over sort of like 21,
Speaker: up to sort of like 25, 26, you need to be a very good climber. you know so So our grade ah grade one, which is what our tourist trails are up here, grade one and two, you know depending on what side of the mountain you're on, if you're on the other side, it's grade four.
Speaker: They're not hikes anymore and they're not and people call them scrambles, but they're not. They're actually graded climbs. Right. Yeah. So ah I would call them ah climes of consequence, you know, so meaning that if something goes wrong, you need to have some skills to be able to get out of that, you know, because the consequences of you not having those skills or you not being prepared – You know, they they can be anything from just needing us to get up there help you down to catastrophic, you know, yeah that's and that's – and I think this is where this is where it's starting to fall towards –
Speaker: with people and I don't like to use social media as a as the blame for everything because there's plenty of good things that come out of it too. And obviously, podcast like this and and everything, like people can, you know, there's there's good groups and there's good information to be shared, but there's also bad things that get shared on there too. And it makes, it trivializes people.
Speaker: the consequences of what can happen when you see a couple of young punters who are supremely fit go, oh, we're going to climb 15 peaks in one day or we're going to we're going to zip up there. and Yeah, and they can do it, you know, and there's there's nothing wrong with that. But the average punter, you know, if something goes wrong because and they're not prepared, what what do you do then, you know? So we our our big thing is promoting being prepared and having skills. Yeah.
Speaker: You need to be able to make a correct decision on the day and that's and that's not what's happening. People aren't making a correct decision and they're they're not timely decisions either, you know. They're they're reactive decisions.
Speaker: And so one of the things I want to dive into a bit then is even that that question in the mind of people, no it's not even a question, but dialing back before they've even so made that thought of, oh, I'm going to do that, and it's that sense in our heads that Where do we fit in our existing capability or our existing fitness and our existing experience levels to how do we come to making those decisions that make us think that's the right scramble, hike, walk, climb for me? I think it's a really difficult skill to get into because it sort of starts digging into things like, you know, um
Speaker: our own sense of self and what we think we're capable of But it's also that we don't know what we don't know. So if we've never experienced what ah even a grade five hike. And that's that's a difficult hike.
Speaker: Yeah. For most of the population, that's a difficult hike. You know, you you need to be prepared. You know, I think, Cara, it goes back to – You know, and i I don't like the harp on people. I definitely don't like lecturing people about stuff. That's not me, you know. Nah. People don't know, you know, so they they just do stuff and it becomes – okay, well, there's no consequence to this, so what I'm doing must be right and I'm just going to keep doing it. And then they then they'll take someone else and show someone else. So it that confidence builds up and you know it's and it's and it's probably an unjust confidence because they don't have the experience for it. you know
Speaker: They're not bad people. Their mindset is they want what we want. you know But what we're trying to sort of say get some experience. you know that the In the mountains, the things that kill people are you know distraction.
Speaker: They get distracted by stuff you know and they make a bad decision. you know But yeah, so surrounding yourself by people who are like you and and going out and learning and learning from other people. you know It's like getting mentors and going out and don't do do something the first time on your own if you don't have the experience to it. Yeah. know, simple things like doing a nav course, you know, learning a little bit about navigation, learning. If you get if you get stuck out overnight, having the right equipment to bunker down and stay the night, you know, have a phone, hey, mum, or or whoever, hey, we're just up here, we're all good, we're coming down tomorrow.
Speaker: no I've had to do that a few times. Yeah. You we're coming down tomorrow, know, just don't soldier on. Just make ah make an appropriate decision for that point of time and so and stick by it, you know.
Speaker: What's time? What's time? A couple of hours, you know. Or even if, and this comes back to that point you you said about the whole preparation being one of the big messages that you like to talk about is if you' if you're prepared and you've got the right stuff, it doesn't matter if you're going to be out overnight because you've got the stuff, you know. Do you want to talk about that preparation? Like if you were – So imagining yeah you're having a chat now, let's let's think you've got people, either maybe locals who live in the area around, say, Glass House or visitors, you know, people coming in, tourist visitors coming to to be in the area. And they've they've done some scrolling and they've seen these beautiful, beautiful images of such these precious places that are around you.
Speaker: And they go, oh, I want to go and feel what it feels to be amongst that. What would be your message to them? What would you want to say? so the first thing i would look at was if it was me, I'd probably have a look and see what sort of shoes got on. That would be the immediate thing that I would, like ah would be able to tell within as they were walking towards me from what they were wearing and what shoes they had on as to pretty much what experience they've got. You know, just simple things like that. You know, have they got...
Speaker: Are they going up like they're doing a climb in the middle at the hottest part of the day and they haven't got a water bottle with them? No. You know, all they've got is a phone, you know, or they've got bare feet, you know. The cyanus moss that grows on the rocks up here, it's It's a black moss and it's it's an algae actually. It's an ah it's a blue green part of the blue-green algae, but yeah it's it's black. So when it's dry, it's really, really good. It's grippy, but you've you've just got to get a a speck of water on it it turns into ice.
Speaker: I've seen that written about. People say, you know, these difficult hikes and climbs, get the mountains get shut for a little bit of rain, and I've not quite understood about that black icy style, but you're saying this is this this is actually an algae?
Speaker: Yeah, it is, yeah. Yeah, so it's on the cliffs there. And the climbs don't predominantly get shut down because of that. if we get a lot of If we get a lot of rain and we get a lot of bad weather, you know, that that rain and that little moisture, and it undermines the foundation. So there's potential for rock falls. So that's that's a lot of the reasons why we like why the mountain the national parks will close the mountains. People don't sort of understand. It kills people.
Speaker: It does. yeah You know, it's very, very dangerous. It's one of when we have to go to rescues. in inclement conditions, you know, obviously that's one of our biggest risks, like slipping and falling. So obviously we've got, you know, we we have processes in place and we've you know We've got anchor systems. like the whole of the The whole of the tourist track on Biwa and Tippergargan, we've got permanent anchors in there.
Speaker: So, we've yeah, we've got permanent anchors in there that we can take. We've got little caps on there and we've got a special tool that we go in and we've got this screw in ah our ah ring rings that we yeah we put in. They're load rated and they're load tested every year. We load test them and we send their results off to national parks and so that – They know what's going on. And we we obviously had to get permission off the traditional landowners, the Gabi Gabi and the Ginnebura people, which you know we're very, very grateful that they they work in with us because obviously the mountains are sacred to them and any damage that's done to the mountain, there's there's healing that needs to be done.
Speaker: yeah So they've recognized. Obviously their preference is no one climbs the mountains, but people do climb them. So there's got to be an avenue to bring those people down if something happens.
Speaker: So this is really interesting because this, and I'm thinking of the photos I've seen and the imagery and the the geology and the geography of this area you're talking about, unlike a lot of rescue organisations that, you know, seem to come in from the top, like in the Blue Mountains where I am, you're doing things differently. So what's different about the work that you do and your teams in Queensland Fire and Rescue? So we have... ah We have different levels of rescue technicians at work. So obviously most fire services have vertical rescue, people who can do vertical rescue. We call them a level two vertical rescue technician. So from there, that's a three-week course. And from there –
Speaker: you can put an application in to do mountain rescue. So from there, we do a two-week mountain rescue operators course, and that gives you the ability to work on the tourist trails, an area of consequence.
Speaker: So we're we're probably one of the organisations that will do a rescue from the bottom up. We have the capability to climb to get someone. So if someone's stuck halfway up a cliff, because we don't have the capacity unless we get dropped in by a helicopter or we go up all the way up over the top and come down – You know, we don't always have the capacity to go from the top down or it might be quicker to go from the base up. So we'll we'll lead climb up to where it is.
Speaker: Can you explain to people who might not have seen those images of the Glasshouse Mountains um and of Biowar, these places you're talking about, what they look like in terms of the landscape and and the geology? is it Is it volcanic or...? It's not flat. They're mountains. They're actual mountains. They're peaked mountains.
Speaker: And I think Biowar is about... ah the The highest one's about 600 metres. So they're not, as far as height-wise goes, when you when you think of traditional mountains, they're not they're not like massive, you know, like obviously Kosyosko's, I don't know what that is. That's probably 3,000, isn't it? Oh.
Speaker: Oh, 2002, something about that? 2002, something like that, yeah. So we're not we're not talking about the scope of those things, but, you know, they are they are very, very steep, especially Tipper Gargan. And on parts of Biowar too, there's a lot of climbing, a lot of recreation and sports climbing goes into them. And now that they've become quite popular, there's the tourist trails. There's a lot of people that go up those tourist trails and the tourist trails are getting, well, I guess they are getting eroded away.
Speaker: You know, the amount of traffic that's on there, you know, and obviously with that, the amount of people that goes up there, areas get eroded away, they get slippery and the more people are up there, there's there's always a danger of rockfall above you, like someone kicking a rock. Yeah. You know, you're going to get hit by a rock coming down, you're gonna youre going to know about it. Yeah. So we we have we have got that. So we've got to have the ability sometimes to get to someone. So we'll have we'll have two groups. One team will go up over the top and come down. But while that's happening, one group might climb if it's quicker and you need to get someone there to make someone safe. So we like all all services, with the fire service is no different from anyone else. We love an acronym. Yeah. Don't you just? Yeah, yeah. We love a good acronym, but but we've actually got one that we use specific for that. So we use an acronym called LAST. So we locate.
Speaker: We make access, we stabilize, and we transport. So locating, we've you know we'll get a phone call, usually triple O call, and it'll come through our fire communication center. And it might come from QAS or the police. Someone will ring up. They'll ring up triple O and they'll speak, and then then it'll get passed on to us. And the information was either – that's still soft information as far as we're concerned. We're looking for hard information because – what someone's telling and what they're seeing might not actually be where they are.
Speaker: And the communication, the the information gets blurred as with as it gets passed down the line as well too. So what we get, information we're getting might not quite be the actually where it is in the locations, you know, might not. So we'll try and get a phone number off someone and we'll try to we'll try to ring them.
Speaker: Yeah. Okay. And we'll ask them what – it might be something as simple as when you're looking out, what can you see? Yeah. You know, there's a farm. ah I ah can see a farm. or I can see a macadamia farm. Oh, okay. Well, we know what side of the mountain they're on.
Speaker: Or we'll ask them to ping a location, a location where they are. we'll We'll talk them through over the phone on how to – how to send us where they are. And that gives us a little bit of an idea too. We can just use Google Maps, you know. so And we obviously we use Gaia as well.
Speaker: ah so So one of the apps, and I'm sure you'll talk about the apps that are available for people too over a period of time. so So we'll we'll use a lot of those as well too. and then And then what we'll try to do is we'll try to get RPAS, which is a drone, so remote aerial pilot. So so that's that's changed everything for us, our drone capability. And we've got a couple of our mountain rescue people are drone pilots and they' they're that good at it, like theyll they'll find the person based on what they are and we'll get we'll get video footage of it and they can tell us where they are. And because they're climbers themselves, I'll go, well, they're at this pitch. They'll tell us how far down they are, how many pitches they are. And they can even tell us how wide the ledge is that they're sitting on, you know, and how how deep back it is. It's just the the technology that's available now is is so good. And I i was actually looking at a – there was a young lifeguard, I think it was at Newport Beach, he he works out of – and he's come up with this AI program now that –
Speaker: that can basically tell you where they are and what they are and what the problem is. You know, it's just, ah there's just so much information out there now that, that that's good for organizations like us. So, so we've got the ability to use that. And then we'll obviously, we'll, we'll make a determination on where they are and how we're going to get there. So we locate them, we make access and that might be from the top or the bottom. It might be climbing. Yeah. And we'll stabilize them. And stabilizing might be doing first aid or it might be keeping them in situ where they are for transportation. So obviously the easiest way to transport someone is via a healer.
Speaker: You know, well we'll helicopter them out, but that's not always possible due to the conditions. You know, the helicopter's off for something else. So it might be for us to transport them. And if they're injured and we've got to transport them down in the litter, she's going to be a long day. It's going to be a long day.
Speaker: So speaking of long days then, what's your advice to people if they are, you know, finding themselves on a mountain or anywhere, in the bush, anywhere, and they've realised that, but you know, they're in a situation that's that's not great in terms of, you know, the time of the day and that and that trying to maybe self-rescue or trying to get themselves out of ah out of a pickle.
Speaker: what What's your advice to them about that? Get in early and ring up as soon as you can. as soon as you're not As soon as you think that you're in trouble, don't try to sit it out. Don't try to think that it'll get better because it won't. Don't try to self-rescue unless you've got the skills, the equipment, and the ability to do it.
Speaker: You know, you can't – if you've got to climb up somewhere to get something, you know, the in climbing, you know, people get cliffed out. You know, they they get to an end. They get to a point. Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, and because they've tried to go further or they've tried to go up and that's it. They're not going in. There's nothing. You know, it's just like a hundred meter fall to from where they are or it's vertical where they are. They can't get out. so Yeah.
Speaker: You know, because they've tried to self-rescue themselves. And you don't you don't want to be in that situation. Yeah. we don't judge people, you know, and that's not our, that's not our job. You know, people, people get in trouble all the time, but that's what, that's what we're there for. We're there to help them. You know, the last thing you need is someone when in there in their worst possible hour is for people to be coming along and going, Oh,
Speaker: You know, you shouldn't have been here. Giving them a lecture. They don't need this. If you're in trouble and you stick your hand up out in the surf, what do what do you expect? you expect there'll be a surf lifesaver to come and they'll paddle out on the board and help you. And like you get to to use the skills that you've got and you've developed, you know, obviously through your recreational life to start with and then just sort of and found yourself into now being able to do this for work um because you love these places and you want people to have those really valuable connections to nature and the bush that we experience. We do. and you know we But the the other side to it too, Cara, is like it's a workplace up there for me too. So like we'll get up there and we'll have to do a rescue of people. There might be four or five other people with them and they'll go, I don't need your help. And I'll go, well, mate, you are. We're putting harness on you and you are going down.
Speaker: And they they arc up a bit and people go, oh, I do this every day of the week. Mate, I'm sure you do, but it's a workplace for us now. you know So we're bound by workplace health and safety and we're also bound by – the training because of that, the training packages that we teach. And we've got a lot of, ah I don't know, rules and regulations with with what we do, what we can do and what we can't do in areas we can go into. And like we designated what our operators and then,
Speaker: a technician where the where they blur, you know, and it's not a a clear-cut case of us just going up there and performing a rescue, you know. There's so many intricate parts that sort of go into place with performing this rescue and doing it successfully. And it's not just about getting getting the rescue, it's about getting everyone off the mountain at the end of the day. It can be very thankless, but it can also be very, very rewarding.
Speaker: You know, there's plenty of bad things too, but there's there's also plenty of good things. And that's the big thing I'd like to sort of impress upon everyone, you know, preparation and consequence, you know. Be prepared, you know. hove the Have the right shoes. Have some food. Have a jacket, you know. Yeah.
Speaker: Now, the weather changes up here like all the time. You know, people go up at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and think, oh, yeah, this would be cool. They've got singlet on, a pair of shorts. You know, in the middle of summer, that rock, we've had thermal imaging cameras and the rock's over 50 degrees. You know, it's 50, 60 degrees. That black moss heats up, you know. And then then by nighttime, you know, we'll get a cold front come over.
Speaker: You know, it's it's freezing cold. Massive thanks for the support from the team at Paddy Pallon, who since 1930 have been leaders in travel and outdoor adventure. In fact, did you know that Paddy 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?
Speaker: Nice one, Paddy.
Speaker: So something I find interesting, um and you mentioned this right at the beginning, is that you've had three fatalities this year already. This year, yeah. So when I, as a someone from the South, think of when would I want to go to Queensland for some adventures, I always think, well, I want to go in winter. I want to go about this time of year, right? But it's making me think that that a lot of these incidents that you've been involved with are happening during, say, summer holidays when people are sort of thinking, oh, I'm going for a Queensland holiday in summer. They are.
Speaker: lot of them are weekends and a lot of them are in high-volume sort of like times, like public holidays. But ah but I will preface ah what I just said about those fatalities too. Like while I can't really comment on much because of their work sort of thing, the probably the young the young girl and her boyfriend that fell not long ago, they'd climbed the mountain lots of times. They were prepared. You know, she got on a phone and she checked the weather app and it was just, you know, it was it was tragic, you know, and that's, there was a lot of, like, I choose usually not to look at social media because of all the experts out there, you know, and and I find it very hard. Like, I'd like to get on there and comment.
Speaker: Yeah. I just don't. You know, they were, they were i would I would say they were well enough well experienced enough to be doing that and to be doing what they were. The weather came over. Once again, they weren't inexperienced, let's put it that way.
Speaker: Something that social media has done is it's made empathy disappear in a lot of ways. And one of my recent guests, we just talked about actually showing kindness to people involved in something, kindness to their loved ones, kindness to the people like yourself who may have been involved in in bringing about a resolution to things is like if we could just turn to dial back up the kindness and the empathy online, um then people would be you know perhaps less nervous about calling triple when they when something's not quite right. Less nervous about this because we don't judge, you know?
Speaker: No, like we said before, call early. The moment you think that you're in trouble, that's the time to call. It's not like five o'clock in the afternoon just before it gets dark because we're still not going to get there for another hour or so.
Speaker: Yeah. no And then we're not going to be able to do anything for like – we won't start climbing for an hour after you get phone call, you know. Yeah. That's the reality. We've got a couple of the guys who live at the base of the mountain. They've got a little bit of gear there, but, you know, the longer you leave it,
Speaker: The longer it's going to be, it's going to be nighttime then. You know, if it's winter, it's going to be cold. It's just there's just so many variables in place that sort of make it harder and harder. And, you know, and like you said, the empathy, social media has probably taken away the empathy a bit. It's opened up.
Speaker: the mountains to people who probably wouldn't have thought about doing it before because it's all a challenge. Everything's a challenge. You know, let's do this challenge. Let's do this challenge. and Interesting. it's it's It's opened it up, but what it hasn't done, and it hasn't,
Speaker: it hasn't shared what you need to do to do that challenge. You know, physical fitness is like the guy who actually started the mountain rescue for us, a guy called Greg Toman. And Greg went overseas and he did a Churchill Fellowship.
Speaker: And he's he's probably one of the most experienced experienced rescue people in Australia, you know. He's such ah he's such a great guy, you know, and he's so knowledgeable and he's just got so much information. Yes.
Speaker: you know And gregs ah greg Greg set this up. you know He's the one that started our mountain rescue after that incident in 2016 where we got called to those two chaps that got stuck up on the mountain and we realized we didn't have the capacity to actually do mountain stuff. but We had the capacity to go off the side of a building and do an industrial job, but as far as doing stuff – yes from the base up and to doing the natural environment.
Speaker: We didn't have the ability to do that, you know? And it's everyone, there's not a fire in the world that won't, or any sort of like service in the world that won't go, mate, we've got to do something, you know? Yeah. You know, police are classics for it. They'll they'll run in and do something because that's just what people who do this job, that's what they want to do. They want to help people. Yeah. And it's it's very, very hard. It was very, very hard. was there that day we were going, mate, we should be doing something. we've got to do something. We've got to do something. But – you know Greg made 100% the right choice. He went, no, we don't have the ability to to do this, but what we do have the ability is we have the ability to build a capacity to do this. SES did it before us, and they they sort of ran out of the capacity to do it as well too because you know you got it you got i mean you're involved with the SES. You know how time-consuming it is If there's a natural disaster, everyone goes – I'll get the SES in. But those people have got to take time off their work.
Speaker: yeah know It costs of money. could take time off. If they're running a business, they've got to be away from their family. They're not getting paid for it. So the ability to maintain those skills and that all the time, it's it's a reasonable financial sort of burden on people.
Speaker: And I get that, not just financially but time-wise. Yeah. Whereas I'm lucky. I'm lucky. i I can get paid to do it, you know. and i get And I do it during work hours, a lot of my training. we get We go on workshops and we do training like a few times a year, you know. um ah Most wintertime I'm up on the Glasshouse Mountains running courses or… ah So good. We're doing workshops. and And when I'm not doing that, I'm up there climbing.
Speaker: So i want to ask you about the preparation stuff. Yep. What's your, you're coming to visit the Glasshouse Mountains. Here's what you should think about before you go on a hike and here's what should take with you.
Speaker: Your first step is to look at reputable websites. Right. Okay. How do you find those? There's bushwalking websites and, you know, there's even, if you're going to look stuff, there's even the crag, the climbing guide. That's got a pretty good sort of thing on there. But the crag doesn't tell you the dangers. It tells you how the approach to it and tells you how to climb it because it's a climbing website.
Speaker: You know, the SES has got staff. it's got There's so many organizations out there that that provide that information. So that that would be my first thing would be to have a look and see what you're actually going to climb.
Speaker: You know, looking at people on Instagram who are up the top waving their arms around going, yeah, yeah, fourth fourth one for the day, that's not information. That's bravado.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. you know You need that information. And then my next step would be to have a look and see what equipment you need. So obviously, you need a good pair of shoes. A pair of running shoes doesn't cut it. you know They're soft. you know And if you lean over and a pair of running, if you put your foot on a pair of running shoes in an angle, you know it's your foot slides in it. So obviously, you need a good pair of shoes. And there's nothing that on the mountain that beats a pair of volleys. A pair of cheap, done lot volleys. you know Oh, spoken like ah a crusty old canyoner there. Yeah, yeah, definitely. But but that's what it is, you know. There's there's nothing that beats you. If you're going to do this regularly, go and buy yourself a pair of Dunlop volleys. They might not be the most fashionable, but, you know, you might come down alive or without an injury. Yeah. Yeah. Or if you want to go even further, go there there's plenty of good pairs of approach shoes. like we use We use approach shoes at work, obviously, and I'm lucky because the fire service doesn't skimp on the gear that they provide us. you know We've got really good – we use really good equipment and you know if I ah wear my shoes out, I just go and get a new pair.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. So i'm I'm lucky like that. And I mean, I know approach shoes can be reasonably expensive, but there's plenty of good ones out there that – You know, they're worth – you're going to be doing this regularly, they're worth the money to buy, you know, because of the vibram salt, the grip on them. And and that's that's the thing. When you're climbing, that's what's going to save you, that grip. yeah You know, having – even having so far as wearing sort of like pants, you know, like like a lot of the well the rescues we got, the girls have got their ah leggings on or they've got their tights on, you know. You know, they they slide down the rock. Yeah.
Speaker: but We see plenty of bare asses up there works where where they're they're worn through, you know. Yeah. Or there's bad, rat like, gravel rashes. is it and People get burnt. Their hands get burnt, you know. Yeah, right. People take their shoes off because they think they're going to be better off bare feet. Oh, wow. You're not better off from bare feet. You're better off on a pair of ollies. Yeah. know, having a jacket, taking a jacket up there with you. You know, having Yeah.
Speaker: Make sure you've got a phone. So you've got ah ah like ah a small day pack or a day pack enough to carry all of these things as well, yeah. Even a little camelback. Yeah. You know, you've got water there and they've got a pocket in them. You can put your phone in. You know, we encourage people to take first aid kits. Yeah. They have a basic first aid kit. you know My first aid kit's obviously – we do a wilderness first aid course, so we we do a tactical a tactical version of that that is taught by ex-military guys and stuff like that because a lot of the injuries we see are pretty horrific and we've got a we've got to deal with that. you know
Speaker: so weve got ah you know we take tourniquades, we take everything, and that's and that's another thing. you know You need to prepare for the worst to be at your best. Oh, yeah. Can we put that on a T-shirt? yeah um Yeah. Prepare for the worst because, you know, I think a lot of people, they think, oh, I'm going out to it for a beautiful day in the bush and you think, if only I had thought of a few things to take with me would actually help me have the best time in the bush and come back with those fabulous memories. Memories, yeah. and she The simple thing is downloading a – a copy of Gaia or even All Trails or something like that. So if you walk in somewhere and you get lost, you can just backtrack with it. You can use your phone to backtrack.
Speaker: Having water, like seeing how far it is to go in there and whatever it is, whatever you think it is, you probably need double what you got, you know. Yeah, that's a good call. And I'll go back to ah ah what Greg did, his ah Churchill Fellowship. he went He went all through Europe, ah throughout the mountains over there and He went to Yosemite and he dealt – like obviously he knows a lot of these people. He knew a lot of these people anyway. And the fire service is actually part of ICARA, the International Alpine Association. we ah We're a voting member on that, our mountain rescue group.
Speaker: Yeah, right. We got that through Greg. So Greg went over to a conference over there and he delivered our big wheel session over there because I hadn't seen that before. Right. And it was something that Queensland Fire Service – and got got to deliver and other organizations all around the world are using it now. so But but so going back to that, one of the biggest things that with Mountain Rescue, with our capability and what people ah come down is fitness. Yeah. You need to be fit enough to work to get in there comfortably and to get out, and you need to be fit enough if something happens to see that through. Fitness and smarts. Yeah, definitely. you've got the preparation, you've got your your shoes, you've got so you've got the right clothes on, like you say, so proper you know um outdoor pants. Even a hat, you know. And, yeah, that fitness part because I think when I see photos of these mountains, these are you've got like flat, flat, flat fla flat, flat mountain just shooting up out of you know what appears to be relatively –
Speaker: um you know, flat agricultural land, and it is this big lump of rock. And if you're going to get 600 metres up this thing, that's that's a hole. And you you take it further down to Mount Barney, you've got like a three or four-hour walk in before you even start climbing.
Speaker: Absolutely. You've got to have fitness capability. So to get up to Peasants, you've got like logans Logan's on um Mount Barney, you need to be prepared for an eight-hour day.
Speaker: Exactly. And most people think, oh i've got I go to the gym, you know, for an hour, a couple of times a week. It's like, no, no, this is like, this is endurance. You know, this is the whole day, not just an hour or two in the gym.
Speaker: And that's it. And even as far as I'm concerned, when we do rescues and that, we've got a lot of young fellas now. who are keen and fit. Like, i'm almost 60 this year, so, you know, so I'm probably getting towards the other end of it as far as these. And I'm, like, we've got to we've got to pass a fitness test every year. We've got to do the Arjors pack test, and there's there's certain things we've got to do every six months to keep out, to maintain. We've got to do so many, arts as an instructor and as a technician, we've got to do so many so many yards of climbing this sort of thing. And so we've got we keep ah we keep a track of what we've got to do.
Speaker: And, ah you know, so we've we've got to maintain our skill base through workshops and through our own fitness to do that. So you look at what's involved with with that, and it's a young person's game.
Speaker: It really, really is. like like ahve Like I've got the technical skills now. I've still got the technical skills and everything like that. But if we've got – a job that's going to be going for a day and a half or two days like it can do on Mount Barney, I'm going to be looking at the young fellas that go and do that. You've got to know your limitations when it comes to that.
Speaker: Like I'm still capable of doing it, but, you know, there's probably yeah other other guys there that are probably bit younger than I am, bit fitter, you know. They'll bounce back ah they'll bounce back a little bit. I don't ah don't ah don't bend and bounce anymore. or snap. Yeah.
Speaker: but is it Is it tough to get into then, like in terms of – and I know that there are you've got women in your um in the mountain rescue team as well. You bet we do. We have quite a few. We have technicians. And and is it difficult to get into?
Speaker: ah If you've got an interest, no. We've got people who never climbed before that have – that are doing it. You know, i got I got a text message this morning from a couple of the guys that have only been climbing for probably a year and a half. and they' they're all They're all going out climbing today. It's classic day to go climbing here today. weather's beautiful. it's there They climb like two, three days a week now. it's just So it's not it's not hard to get into, but it's it's difficult to maintain the skills that you need to upkeep to do it.
Speaker: you know Once again, like I don't ah don't climb the grades that I used to anymore. like I'm very, very happy climbing sort of like a 16 through to to a 21. That's me. um ma you keep i I'll climb that and I'll enjoy myself all day. i can probably still get up a 23, maybe
Speaker: you know, but I'm not going to enjoy it anymore. You need to know where you sit in the pack of things these days to make it enjoyable for yourself. And once you, if you don't realize that, it becomes a chore. And if it becomes a if it becomes a chore, you know, once again, that complacency and that, you know, you're you're starting to cut corners.
Speaker: You know, you're not you're not doing things and it's, yeah it become It can become dangerous then. was talking to, like when I climbed down the Blueys little while ago, I was talking to a fellow down there. He was one of the climbing yeah guides out of one of the shops down there. And we were just having having a chat and he was saying, yeah, he said, ah and he he was a good climber. He was a really, really good climber. And he was out climbing he was out climbing with his dad. And they were doing they were doing the same climb as we were.
Speaker: They do it all the time. He said, yeah. He said, I just love getting out here and doing this with my dad. This is dad's favorite one now. He doesn't go above that. His dad was like 68, you know. Yeah. He was making it look easy, you know. I'm just going, bloody hell, hope I'm climbing like that when I'm 68. But he said, yeah. You know, he said, you just, you know, just because you can do something doesn't mean it's the most enjoyable thing. You know, getting out there, getting out there and being safe and picking something. And I'm going to use the example of Mount Tibrogon, you know, going and doing the circuit track around the base.
Speaker: The mountain's beautiful. You look up and you can see everything, you know. You know, you can go and climb Mount Nagungan, which is just down the road, which is a nice, easy walk in and it's you can take your time, and most people are capable of doing that.
Speaker: And the view is exactly the same as it is from ah the top of Biowa and the top of Tibro, you know. It's go. It comes back to that line you you just said a second ago, which was it's it's knowing where you sit and it's that ability to self-judge, like to to understand where your capabilities, your fitness yeah and your experience lies so you can make wise choice that you're going to enjoy, not endure, you know? No, that's right. Yeah, a timely and inappropriate decision yeah is something that's going to be memorable. Yeah. Whereas something that's not is something you're going to come back and go, oh, hot tu why did I do that? or And there's been plenty of those with me. Yeah. Why did I do that? or I probably didn't enjoy that as much. Never again. Yeah, as um as I should have, you know.
Speaker: Do you have a personal story about an incident or rescue during an outdoor trip when something didn't quite go to plan? Maybe you got lost, injured, let down by some gear, preparation or something else. Look, honestly, it can happen to any of us at any time, regardless of how experienced we are.
Speaker: And it's by sharing these stories and tales that we can all learn and help to avoid them in the future. So if that's you, i'd love to hear from you. So please drop me an email to rescued at lotsofreshair.com.
Speaker: That's rescued with a D.
Speaker: So thinking about the work you do and I know it's like you said, look, you know, you you can laugh, you know, you've seen probably some spectacular sunsets and sunrises in your time, I'm guessing. um Again, coming because of the times of day people call. yeah And, you know, you've had some highs, but, you know, there's another side to the work that you do and it's that and it impacts your recreational world then too in terms of where you want to go and have your adventures, where you want to go and spend time. Can you talk to me a little bit about that?
Speaker: Yeah, I guess this falls under the category of psychological first aid, you know, and looking after looking after our mental health and our stuff. And i'm I'm not immune to that.
Speaker: You know, I've got three and a half months leave off now. If I was to be honest with you, I'd say my cup's full at the moment. Yeah. I needed some time off. There's areas now that I won't go climbing and they're places that I used to enjoy going and going up, but now I just go, oh, yeah, nah, I'll go do something else, h you know, because I've – you know They don't bring back good times for me anymore. It's like ah I just think of – there's so many analogies about mental health and how it works. and
Speaker: you know My one is you know you've got a big – your head's a big triangle, okay, and at the base you've got blocks that fill it up. Yeah. throughout your career the base it might take four blocks to get along the base of it and then as you're going up you know three blocks and then two blocks and then the last block is one block and when you when your triangle fills up you're done you know so you might take annual leave and you might take and it might take a few of the layers out and give you a bit more breathing space but over your career
Speaker: you're never going to beat the triangle. The triangle's going to get to the top, you know, and it's, you know, you've you've got to be prepared for that and you've got to look out for each other. And as an organization, you know, there's lots and lots of things in place to do that. The reality is too,
Speaker: Do I want to talk to someone that knows nothing about climate or knows nothing about what I've been through? Not really. You know, they're just I might as well mos will be talking to the pot plant because they don't know anything about it, you know. Yeah. Or a lot of my friends, people i work with.
Speaker: I rely on them a lot. I rely on my family a bit too. My brother's a paramedic. He knows when stuff's going on. know, my wife, Jane, she knows when stuff's happening. Even my kids, both my boys climb. So they know, especially when you're younger, by golly, he's a really good climber. He knows there's places that he just won't go. We won't go there.
Speaker: No, he knows that I don't want to go there and stuff like that. So, you know, that there's places like that. And the people I work with too, like I've – You know, some of the people who started this journey with me when we first kicked off on that first day, you know, there's probably only of us, of the sort of – 10 or 15 people that were there, probably not even that many.
Speaker: There's probably only about three or four the original people left now. You know, and they're feel they' their cup's full. You know, the other people, they've tapped out it for various reasons, whether they're getting older or whether they just, you know, they just had enough.
Speaker: Yeah. And, you know, we've got to be we've got to be thoughtful of that process. and And I think, once again, sort of, When people comment on stuff on social media and we see that, you know, whilst they don't know me and a sort of for their comment is not a reflection on me,
Speaker: Oh, it hurts. You know, it's like just one comment about something from someone who wasn't there and who wasn't there. Like we're not a we're not immune to people saying, oh, that that was shit, that what you what you guys did, you should have done this and you should have done that because there's plenty of people out there. there are plenty of people knowledgeable people out there and experts out there, but they're more than likely not to tell you over social media.
Speaker: Yeah. They'll make contact for you. And I've had people contact me before and go, oh, mate, I saw saw you guys did this. Why did you do that? And I said, yeah, that's a good point. You know, we're not immune we're not immune to making mistakes and we're not immune we're not immune to being tired. We're not immune to being cranky. You know, we might get a call at 10 to 5 on a Sunday afternoon.
Speaker: I started at 7 o'clock that morning. And that's 10 minutes before my shift's supposed to finish. And I might not get home till five o'clock the next morning. but might ah I ah might spend the whole night up there on the mountain because of the conditions. yeah I might not get home at all. We're bunkered down plenty of times up there overnight.
Speaker: You know, and it might it's not just overnight too. Like we'll have to, we have to if it's been a fatality, we we've spent nights up there with the body, you know, because they can't can't get it out until the next morning. But they'll, like Life Flight and the QG Air are really good. they'll They'll do everything they can to help us out to fly it out. But sometimes they can't, you know. We've got to bring it down ourselves. And that's, like I said, that's a big, big job and it's protracted. And then we've just spent, we've done a 10-hour shift or a 12-hour shift during the day. Yeah. And then we just spend another 24 hours up there and we make mistakes when we're tired just like everyone else does.
Speaker: Yeah. and we're But the difference is ah we're open to comments and i i I think people socially commenting on stuff, you know, i i think I think we should be, you know, we should be responsible for the decisions we make up there and ah should we and we should be definitely should be accountable for some of the things. Yeah.
Speaker: that we do sometimes, you know, but but when people just make comments just willy-nilly when they have no real understanding of what's happened them before that or after that or during it, it does it does hurt us and psychologically it does affect us. Yeah. You know, it's sort of like it'll knock someone will make a shit comment just off a car off the cuff.
Speaker: You know, that'll affect some of us for like ages, you know we'll We'll always be thinking about that. We've got very, very good support from – we've had a lot of commissioners and assistant commissioners and, you know, who who've stood behind us and they've they've gone in to bat for us with everything, with funding, and we're a long way from where we started. And the equipment and the gear is a long way – if I look back on the first day that we started doing this, and the gear and the equipment they had and the knowledge we had to where we sit now – you know i'm I'm pretty proud of where we've got to. Once again, like I talked about Greg Toman before, so Greg was probably the the driver of this and the instigator of this. And then there's people like the other guys who I work with, who I'm sure Scotty and Matt and guys like that and Grant you know and all the the other instructor group, you know where we've got to where we are now.
Speaker: it wouldn't have It wouldn't have happened. Yeah. And we've put a lot of our own time and our own work into it as well too. So there's a lot of stuff we've done that's unpaid. it's like you know It's like volunteers, like the SES and stuff you do, and you know how much work you put into stuff for people just to sort of dismiss stuff and you just think, well, I'll just put bloody three months of my life into that and you're just dismissing what I've got to say. Yeah. it's You know, that – that That has a psychological effect as well. You know, and it's not like ah like I said before, it's not intentional from a lot of it. Yeah. It's just an organizational thing. And I think organizationally we can do – there's so many things that we can do better as well too. And it's up to us. It's up to people like me who are still doing it. And it's up to the rank and file people to do that. You know, it's very – It's not, you know, once, as you move up the ladder, you become, you know, you know in an organisation at the ground level, you're working with your team of people. And as you get further up the chain, you're just a dot on a computer, you know, you you go from being a person to someone who's on shift.
Speaker: and that's And that's just how organisations work, you know, because you've got to cover. You've got to cover stations. You've got to cover things. But I think as rescue technicians and engineers,
Speaker: As climbers and people and just good humans, we've got to recognise that amongst ourselves, that the stuff that we say and what we do can have a profound effect on the psychological and mental capacity of the people doing those jobs. And it's not just that, it's the families have been who have been involved and had a loved one that they've lost. I mean, that's, you know, one person, it can affect like 100 people easy, you know. And it's just phenomenal. It's just like, you know. It's that ripple.
Speaker: Yeah, that ripple effect. And, you know, we've got to, as humans, I think we've got to do better. Yeah. And I think there's there's a ah message in that for all of us that if we ever find ourselves in, you know, ah a forum or a Facebook page or Insta or wherever people are ah consuming their social media, to actually call it, like if someone does, you know, so if someone goes for a pile on, i actually think it's up to us as a community to show the empathy to the situation yeah And if someone's speaking out a line in that way, just to, you know, again, how do you find that balance of not giving them the pylon, but just to gently call it, you know, yeah or to even reach out to the admins to to ask for their comments to be removed. Moved, yeah. Because, you know, we we all live in this community, this greater community together, and we need him for empathy, kindness. Yeah.
Speaker: And there's a lot of there's a lot of good things too. you know I ah saw a young fella. He's on the Sunshine Coast here. And he obviously goes up and down the glass house quite a lot. And I noticed he used to just post photos, selfies up there all the time with his shirt off and stuff. And I noticed the other day that he's been putting up tips.
Speaker: but Like safety tips, make sure you if you're going to do this, have water, pick the a time of day. you know So there's a lot of good stuff coming out of it too and I i saw how many followers. he He's got a lot of followers, like I've got about six.
Speaker: Wow, you're really getting up there, mate. Yeah, I'm getting up there. You're going to have some commercial deals soon. Yeah, yeah. I'd like to thank the six followers, my six friends who commented on my birthday the other day. Yeah. Yeah, there's yeah like I said, but he's got a lot of followers and, you know, and it's good to see it's good to see that. and I noticed the National Park put a little comment on there too. Oh, mate, that'd be great if you could put some tips on there. Yeah, great. I'd like to see that sort of stuff happening more, you know. Yeah. We have got these mountains, you know, and people are going to do it.
Speaker: And, you know, whether whether you think people should be climbing or whether you don't think people should be climbing, it's – You know, people are climbing them, so i'd I'd like to see them do it safely, you know. It's sort of we need to be doing things safely or we need to not be doing them.
Speaker: That's kind of where i that's where that's where I sit with it. We try to work as much as we can. We work with within our framework of the Queensland Fire Department, but we also work with the national parks and we work with um the First Australians as much as we can. you know, and like I said, they've been they're being really, really supportive of us over the over the period of time we've been doing it and that that's been fantastic. And whether yeah they are a reasonably small group of people but they are very, very significant, whether you believe that or not, you know, they are a very, very significant group of people in in our heritage, in our past, you know and you know. So we've got to be taking into consideration what
Speaker: what their beliefs are too, you know. say Yeah. So I don't know, that more holistic approach, like I was talking about before, that more holistic approach, you know, where you're going, what you're trying to achieve, the equipment you've got, you know, what you've got, is is it suitable? Is it suitable for what you're trying to achieve for the day? You know, have I told someone I'm going up there, have I rung them when I got back down, you know?
Speaker: Have I checked the weather? always Have you checked the weather? It's not as though you can't check the weather now with your smartphone. There's a thousand websites. You can look at the bomb site. You can look at Willy Weather. you know you can You can target in exactly where you're going for it. You can ask people advice on those forums. Yeah, local knowledge. I'm thinking of doing this.
Speaker: Hey, has anyone done this? Can someone give please give me some advice? for every two rubbish comments, There'll be eight really, really good ones where people have gone, oh, mate, I don't think you should ah do this today. What have you thought about doing this or make sure you're prepared with this and do this? This is this is what I did to to do it successfully because there's a lot of really qualified people out there and there's a lot of smart. There's a lot of people who are prepared. like I said, there's a lot of clubs. there's you know yeah There's a lot of people who do a lot of – have got a lot of information and a lot of experience and with our community too, you know. You've only got to go somewhere and someone will start talking to you about something. They love it, you know? I love it. I love it. Small towns, small five villages. They found someone who would want to talk about what they're talking about, you know?
Speaker: it's It's awesome. yeah yeah Like when we were in Katoomba, there wasn't like five minutes went past where were you're not talking to someone about something someone's asking where you been or or have you done this climb or have you thought about this or, hey, why don't you not climb tomorrow? The weather's going to be crap. Go and do this walk. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's just like even even the canyons, like I i haven't been down Claustor Canyon for years, you know It's probably 30 years since I've done Claustor Canyon.
Speaker: And I was thinking of doing it next time I was down there with my son. And I i got on. It's all changed, you know. It's all changed, like the entrance and the exit points. Oh, yeah. From where we used to go in and stuff. Yeah.
Speaker: You know, I just got on a forum and and I asked a couple of people. but It was like 40 comments within yeah within half an hour of people going, I'll have to think about this, do this, do this. The information's there if you choose to if you choose look for it.
Speaker: And there are good people doing good work and putting good information out there. And I'm i'm wondering if maybe maybe rather than celebrate and reward, you know, bare-chested shaking, you know, 10 peaks today on top of a mountain selfie, we actually reward people like that local bloke you talked about in the sunny coast who's going, actually, well, here's a tip. Here's a beautiful image of something, you know, you may want to I can't remember his name because I just ah just thought it was that good. I i would have even loved to give him a shout-out, you know.
Speaker: Well, I'm sure somebody listening to this will know who we're talking about or we'll be able to suss him out and I'll put a link in the show notes and and a bit of a shout-out because it's that kind of stuff. It's actually, look, we don't want to gatekeep and stop people from from connecting with these places. We want people to have a great time and come back to do it again and to help your team out and your your friends and yeah the people, the colleagues you work with. We don't want to nanny state people either too because- No, we definitely i want people to go out and experience stuff. You know, sometimes the best experience is you hover the ones that went a bit pear-shaped.
Speaker: Because we all learnt from those. We come back and we go, well, I'm not going to do that again. yeah. yeahy Like I said, it's, you know I've been having the capacity to do this and, you know, um' we do talk to other rescue organisations a bit too, find out where they're sitting. You know, rescue is a very insular thing. Yeah. If you think you're the best, you're not.
Speaker: If you've got to tell yourself you're the best, you're not. You know, you you need to be sampling from other organisations. You need to be sampling from other groups. And as as i yeah a traditional fire service you know we're very good at taking something and creating our own thing and sticking to it like i said earlier caro about our rank structure but the fire service has a obviously has of quite a quite rigid rank structure it's based on military i guess and police is the same and it's
Speaker: We always have someone who will control the job, like an incident controller, but they might not necessarily be the person who's in charge on the mountain. You know, we'll have someone who's just started, for someone who's been doing it for like 15 years, they've got just as much say in stuff as well.
Speaker: You know, if someone says to me, hey, Bill, I'm not happy with that knot, or I'm not happy with something, maybe they've seen something that I haven't seen, you know, so I'll just take that on board straight away. Might be nothing wrong with it, you know. It might be just like...
Speaker: You know, they just haven't recognized something. So with regards to that, like we'll keep our training, like with what we use in the knots we use, all the gear we need. So we need to be able to recognize a knot when we've first done it, whether it's two o'clock in the afternoon or whether it's 24 hours later at 2 o'clock in the morning, you know, we need to be able in the rain and we've been up for 24 hours, we need to be able to look at that and go, I recognize that because that once you start to get that that fatigue and stuff going, we need to we need to be able to do stuff. And we had one of the guys not long ago, yes he got one of the other fellows to change the system and change the knots because he didn't recognize the knot he did. And it's the knot he uses every day of the week. Wow.
Speaker: You know, it's every day of the week this fellow uses that particular knot. And he said to the other guy, oh, I don't like that knot. And the other fellow's looking at it and going, there's nothing wrong with Yeah, I'll change it. But at least us iss it's fatigue. And the fellow the fellow didn't recognize it. like he's like He's punching 27, 28s leading.
Speaker: Yeah, wow. And he's you know he's like he's one of these crazy guys, base jumping his whole life and doing stuff like that. And just fatigue, you know, and just of like, um you know, you get the you get focused on something and you get fixated. And that situational awareness and everything sort of like – And it happens to everyone. It happens to everyone in every organization, whether you're military, whether you're police.
Speaker: Even just for hikers, just for anyone doing weekend recreational stuff, like you do stuff over and over and over again. And you'll just go, wait, hang on, what have I done? Yeah, complacency, you know. Complacency. Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, the two things, like complacency and destruction, they'll kill you every day of the week.
Speaker: Situational awareness, confidence and competence. Yeah. I think we've got the front and the back of the T-shirt now. still here Yeah. So, yeah yeah, like I said before, that that incompetence without consequence, it leads to confidence, you know. Yeah. And that's that's probably not related so much to complacency and distraction because there's been so many good people have got injured who are You know, who are ah very, very competent. Yeah. You know, and it's, I've gone down a rope before I got to the bottom and just gone, oh, there's now no knot in the bottom of that.
Speaker: Yeah. You know? And I've been lucky, you know? everyone Everyone's lucky at some stage, you know? But you just don't want to be that time when when you're unlucky. and that's why And that's why when we climb and when we do stuff,
Speaker: we have other people there and we check, you know, we double check and we we check each other out. You know, we we have a look at before we climb. We'll have a look at each other's equipment and each other's – we'll make sure we've got the right gear for the job or we'll make sure we've got enough gear to get to the job and do the job because there's nothing worse than – You know, if we've got to take a drill up to drill, you know, those drills weigh four kilos, you know. It's like by the time you carry everything. Yeah. yeah um Sometimes our packs will be like 30, 40 kilos when we hike in to get to somewhere. So we'll have to hike in for a couple of hours and then we'll have to actually climb.
Speaker: So we're fatigued before we even get to the base of the mountain, before we even start climbing. We haven't even done the rescue or started the rescue, you know. you know So we've got to we've got a level of fatigue before we even get there, you know. So it's – We've got to make sure we've got these self-checks and that situational awareness, you know. And the systems, yeah. And that that goes for people who are just going out on a day hike or going. You need you need to self-check, you know. You need to have, even if it comes down to just having enough. How much water do I have, yeah you know. Yeah, exactly, yeah. So, Billy, I'm going to start wrapping it up, but I want you to have a think about
Speaker: If there's anything you want to talk about that we haven't touched on yet, and whether that be messages to people coming to the local area, to to other emergency services and other like colleagues of yours across different services, any messages you've got for the for the listeners?
Speaker: Yeah, look, people coming to the area to do stuff. I mean, we're close to Brisbane too, so there's a lot of people come up for the day. the stuff i Like I would say, do do a little bit research. Don't just take stuff off ah the internet, off Instagram or Facebook.
Speaker: I'd say can do a little bit more research than that. Get out there and and be prepared. Have a look what you need to actually do the job. you know that then what What do you need to do the task, whether it's a job or whether it's – yeah know whether it's going for recreational hike. you know Be aware of timeframes.
Speaker: you know if something If something says, oh, it's going to take an hour to get up and back, it's probably going to take a little bit longer. that That's usually based on someone with a medium level of fitness. you know a young and fit person might do that in half the time, but someone who's not hasn't done much all, it might take double the time. So always give yourself enough light.
Speaker: And if you do get into trouble, call it in early. <unk>t There's no embarrassment in calling in. There's none whatsoever. There's zero judgment from us. You know, that's to us, it's a job and we'll we'll thank you.
Speaker: More than likely if you've called it in early. If you said to us, oh, we got in trouble so we wanted to call it in early, we'll be high-fiving you and you'd go mate, 100%, that was the exact right thing to do. Yeah. We'll do that every day of the week. So there's zero, there should be zero.
Speaker: You know, there might be a little bit of a personal pride, dint in your pride, but, you know, you can live with that. yeah You can live with that and it's easier rather than leaving it to later and making the job harder. you know ah'd ah just Also, I'd like to shout out i like shout out to the yeah all the fire service for letting us do this. you know it's sort of like It was a big decision and you know for a lot of people to actually do this. They probably didn't want to do it to start with because it's so far out of the scope of what –
Speaker: What's normal, you know, the two things, most dangerous things in the whole of the fire brigade are mountain rescue and swift water rescue because you have zero control over what's going on, you know. You're at you're out basically at the mercy of the elements, you know, and there's so many things that can go wrong.
Speaker: in climbing, you know, with mountain rescue and having to do stuff. You know, you're relying on the quality of the rock. You're relying on the gear. You're relying on the weather. You're relying on so many things that that are completely out of control of what You know, what we're used to, we we can't put in those safety measures, we can't put in those control measures and that risk mitigation like we do with other with other roles that we do, you know, at work. So theyve the fire service has been really, really good and ah and Steve Smith, our commissioner, he's been phenomenal and and no our old commissioner up the coast, Gary McCormick, he was –
Speaker: You know, he was instrumental in pushing it as well too and supporting us and John Corkett as well. You know, I ah can't thank all those guys enough for letting us do what we do and another fellow, Matt Quinn and Ben Carroll, for, you know, helping get this thing going. You know, it's just...
Speaker: The QAS, you know, our QAS friends and and colleagues too, you know, they they want to come up and help, but they can't. You know, they're it's it's really, really hard. It takes two of our people to look after one QAS person up there, you know, so it's hard. So they get frustrated all the time, not not being able to to help out as much as they can, but they, you know, they do a phenomenal job.
Speaker: We're doing the after-patient care with us and even just looking after us at the job too. Like they're just, you know, they are troopers. Like everyone, they're underpaid, they're overworked and they, you know, but they're just trooper on, you know, the paramedics up the coast who do look after us and they do look after us and they've got our back every day of the week. QG Air and the Care Flight guys who fly in.
Speaker: take take all the glory and go, oh, we've got to come down. Mate, we still appreciate it because there's nothing hard. If they don't come in and take the patient, we've got another six to eight hours to get them down, you know. Yeah. So, like i said, it's, you know, all the people involved, even the QPS, you know, the police service, everyone that's the The general people, the public on Biwa, the local people, you know, they're supportive of what we do all on that local area. And I can't – and also I like the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Ginoburra and the Gabi Gabi as well, you know.
Speaker: can't We can't do this without people's support and we can't do this. There's frustration all at all levels all the time. But the underlying thing is we want to help people.
Speaker: Yeah. And that's that's where we sit with this. Like i said, please call us early. And yeah, and let us let us do it. Let us do our job. And that's the thing, like that sense of teamwork and you're not there alone. You are there as part of just not just one team, but a a bigger team, which goes to all these organizations and people you've just talked about um who are just there doing the absolute best they can. You know, someone said to me once, and it was someone within the ambulance service said,
Speaker: You know, our job isn't to save lives because the reality is we can't always do that. No. But our job is just to do the best we can. Yeah, yeah. And you can only do that sometimes, you know. we we're very Like I said, we're very, very critical on what we do, we each of us do. So we're probably our worst enemies.
Speaker: But it's just just the way it is, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And people like you for doing this podcast gets it out there, you know. Getting it out there. People get it out there, let people know. It's just like, you know. And that we can all learn. Yeah, we can all learn, you know, and and that's it. You know, we've got the opportunities. We've got so many great opportunities in Australia. We've got so many good young people too. Like young people get a bad rap, you know.
Speaker: But they're not – they're fabulous, you know. they' They're up against it more than anyone, you know. yet They still – they get up every day and they're still smiling and they still want to do these things, you know. They want to get out there and they want to do stuff.
Speaker: So great. And that's – for me – As someone who's always done that and who's a lot older, you know, I see my kids and I see all the young kids that work on the beach. but um I'm just in awe them. You know, i love them. I love young people. I just think Australia's got a really good future ahead of it and I think it's, you know, well, we've got to give them an opportunity so we can do that.
Speaker: Yeah, so good. part of Part of this is this, what we're doing today. Yeah. ah Billy, thank you so much. And and from a punter perspective, um thank you um to you for the work that you've done, the work you continue to do for training up the new people to come after you to be doing these things.
Speaker: All the best for the rest of your break, your time off. um I hope the surf is always absolutely exactly how you want it to be. there'll be plenty of surfing plenty climbers, Cara, so yeah. Excellent. Well, if you ever make it down to the Blueys again, we'll have to catch up and have that cup of coffee the cafe. i I know just the place. Fantastic. I love it.
Speaker: If you've enjoyed this powerful story or one of the many others from my super generous guests, you can help more people connect and hear these valuable lessons simply by leaving a five-star review. And why not even click that little bitty share button on your podcast app and help your outdoorsy mates find it too.
Speaker: The Rescued podcast is produced on the unceded lands of the Gondungara 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.
Speaker: Special thanks to our sponsors, Paddy Pallon. This has been Lots of Fresh Air production.
