Coastguard – Training aids real life rescue

It’s been a busy summer for Coastguard Hibiscus, many sunny and eventful days on the water. Silverdale fire brigade conducted a training exercise that some of our team were involved with, back in December. This involved rappelling an injured person down a cliff and onto a boat. Hibiscus Rescue 2, which is a Sealegs, was the perfect vessel for a scenario like this and it was a great opportunity for us to join in. The team drove Hibiscus Rescue 2 onto the beach and once the ‘patient’ was down they strapped the stretcher to the front of the console across the pontoons and launched. This was extremely valuable training, as barely three weeks later the same crew had to put the stretcher setup into real life use when a passenger on a boat had a suspected medical event.

Our team was called to take a paramedic out to assess the situation and transport the passenger to a waiting ambulance, so the crew used the setup they had practiced and it all went perfectly. Luckily this is not a common occurrence but great to have training pay off and help someone in need.

On Friday, January 12, the team were paged early to attend two vessels which had broken down out by Tiritiri Matangi Island. The first was a small runabout with two people on board, and the second an 8m boat. In an unusual event, both boats were put in a barge, one on either side of Hibiscus Rescue 1, and transported safely to Gulf Harbour. Two days later, the crew attended a boat by Boulder Bay on Rangitoto for a tow back to Okahu Bay. The vessel was close to rocks as the occupants had been diving for kina. Our team attempted to drag them out by their anchor line but the anchor was stuck. This meant a bit of maneuvering back and forth to try to pull it up, which luckily worked, and then a nice standard tow back to Okahu Bay.

At the end of January we were setting up the boat for launching when a mayday came through for a 4m boat with mechanical problems that was drifting between Shag Rock and Tiritiri Matangi towards the rocky shore. As we made our way there, we heard one of our neighbouring units, Northshore Rescue, was ahead of us and the Navy vessel Te Puna was also making way as the target boat continued to drift towards rocks. Northshore Rescue was on the scene first and got a line to the target when it was only five metres from the rocks, before pulling it to safety and getting the engine going. As Northshore had another task to attend to, we volunteered to follow the target vessel back to Waiake Bay in case they needed further help. That was just a taste of the busy summer season we have had so far – let’s hope the great weather continues. Be safe everybody.