Two weeks ago I broke my leg on the Wingecarribee River, paddling a section with four amazing lads, who I am now indebted to. Below is a review of the incident by Griff Thomas, detailing improves for ourselves and those going on remote area trips in the future.
I`d like to thank BJ, Duanne, Ruggy and Dan for their selfless actions on the river for me that day, thanks to Griff for jumping into action on the day and acting liaison with Rescue Services, organising a debrief, and writing up the review, and cheers to all paddlers that have checked in said G'day and sent disparaging messages to pep me up.
By Griffith Thomas May 15 at 6:04am
Recently a group of five experienced Canberra based paddlers had an incident on the Wingecarribee River. One member of the party broke his leg whilst conducting a portage in a deep gorge that required aeromedical evacuation and subsequent surgery. The remaining four paddlers spent an unplanned night beside the river and paddled out the next day with the extra boat and equipment.
The paddlers where all skilled kayakers and most had paddled this section of the river in the past. They were well equipped for the river conditions and had three PLBs and a Spot among the group, however they were less well equipped for an unplanned night beside the river and whilst they had a fire going, the night has been described as ‘less than comfortable’. The river on that day was at a solid level measuring ~1.3 on the Greenstead gauge. The incident occurred at ‘Double Drop,’ a section that all paddlers had decided to portage. Whilst on the River the group communicated with another group of paddlers who were slightly ahead of them. They were unable to contact this group once the incident occurred. A timeline of the event is below.
• 2:00 PM – Paddler breaks leg during portage. Immediate first aid provided and attempt to contact other group on river through whistle blasts unsuccessful.
•2:15 PM – A 406 MHz PLB is activated.
• 3:15PM – The PLB signal is identified by a commercial airliner and a message passed to the Canberra Rescue Coordination Centre. No location fix available at that time.
• 3:41 PM – A satellite pass picks up the PLB and coordinates passed to CRCC. Helicopter now airborne
• 3:45 PM– CRCC contact the contact person for the PLB. She confirms the details of the group and that they are paddling the Wingecarribbee River.
• 4:08 PM – The group sets of a Spot. Spot Tracker sends out location data at 5 min intervals thereafter.
• 4:12 PM – The contact person for the Spot receives a phone call. Not answered and SPOT contact CRCC.
• 4:30 PM – Air Ambulance NSW helicopter arrives on site and winches in a paramedic. Helicopter departs to Goulbourn to refuel.
• 6:30 PM – Helicopter returns and conducts NVG winch operation to extract the injured paddler and paramedic. Departs to Goulbourn to refuel.
• 8:00 PM – Injured paddler arrives at Liverpool Hospital.
• 7 – 10:00 AM Next Day – Remaining paddles complete recover of all equipment to vehicles.
Overall the management of the evacuation was a success, the injured paddler was in Liverpool Hospital some five hours after the accident, messages where able to be passed to the other paddlers’ families that they would be delayed and all equipment was recovered. One week after the incident and once the injured paddler had returned to Canberra the crew got back together to review the situation. As with any such situations there were a lot of things that they did in preparations for the trip and in reaction to the emergency that on review they would sustain into the future. There were some things that upon reflection they have decided to change.
Sustain
• Timings on the river. The crew left Canberra at 6 AM and on the water at 10 AM. This left them with a contingency of daylight to deal with any unforeseen delay / incident.
Initial reaction to incident, communication attempt with other party and first aid.
• Briefing / equipment check prior to commencing the paddle meant that all paddlers understood what emergency equipment the group was carrying.
• Multiple PLBs / Spots.
• Emergency blankets and first aid kits.
• Contingency planning after the incident and decision making by the group at the incident site.
• Maps of Area / GPS App on iPhone (GPS Kit) that allowed group to confirm location and establish ground evacuation route if required.
Improve and Fix
• The paddlers where unsure if the PLB had worked and CRCC initially did not have a fix and considered the possibility that the PLB had been an unintended activation. Fix is if available activate more than one PLB / SPOT straight away (separated by 100m).
• The injured paddler did not have ID / Medicare details or medical insurance details with him. Fix is for paddlers to consider taking phones in waterproof pouches with either photos or photocopies of licence / Medicare cards and medical insurance details.
• The unplanned overnight stay was less than comfortable. Fix is to insure that for river trips that have a possibility of an emergency overnight stay that dry thermals, emergency rations, emergency bivy bags are carried.
• Establishing the fire was difficult. Fix is the inclusion of fire starters or some old inner tubing in emergency kit.
• Confirmation of all paddlers on the trip took some time for those in contact with CRCC. Fix is the logging of details of paddlers and key emergency equipment that they have with them on more remote rivers. It was agreed that kayakcanberra.com was the best resource to record this information.
• A record of emergency contacts was not immediately available to those in contact with CRCC. Fix is the central recording of this information. Still establishing the best resource for this.
Here is some footage of the incident
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQHFnbncE6ARiver Heights » KayakCanberra.com
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