Coal mine hosts multi-agency training exercise

IT WAS a sight to behold last Tuesday as Wonthaggi SES, Wonthaggi Fire Brigade, Bass Coast Police, Ambulance Victoria paramedics and State Coal Mine Tuesday night volunteers participated in a group training exercise at Wonthaggi’s State Coal Mine under the expert guidance of Parks Victoria State Coal Mine staff Holly Gloster, Anthony Jones and Phill Price.

The training exercise is part of the mine’s WorkSafe requirements with emergency services having previously gathered over the years to perform various rescue and drill scenarios. 

Tuesday’s scenario was an opportunity for SES members and paramedics, including a volunteer Ambulance Community Officer, to work closely with Parks Victoria personal to ensure procedures are up to date as they look to commence walk-in, walk-out underground mine tours in the near future.

“(Tuesday) gave all agencies the opportunity to work together with a collaborative approach as a team,” Ambulance Victoria acting senior team manager Bass Coast Anthea Chester said noting it was a great exercise to learn from and ensure agencies were prepared for the unfamiliar environment when the mine reopens to tourism.

“It better enables us to be prepared so we can deliver best care for the community and visitors to the area.

“It was a really good night and has allowed us to learn in advance what is possible rather than during a 
real-life event. We were really impressed with the equipment SES had and working with them to get the patient, in this case a 75kg dummy, safely up the incline.”

The first exercise involved the extraction of patient with an ankle injury, whilst the second was a patient suffering a suspected cardiac arrest.

Local senior sergeant and municipal emergency response coordinator Brent Muir was on hand from Bass Coast police and watched over the scenario, whilst local firefighters were on hand to support and assist where necessary.

State Coal Mine volunteers assisted with mine familiarisation and support.

“The training was successful with excellent collaboration and learnings for all participating agencies,” Senior Sergeant Muir stated.

It’s not the first-time multi-agency exercises have occurred at the mine with the local SES and CFA crews undertaking a wide array of training exercises including underground fire scenarios. 

“It was a really good opportunity for familiarisation around the mine,” Wonthaggi SES unit controller Jarrod Hargreaves explained.

“The multi-agency aspect was great. It was great to have Brent Muir on scene in his role as the new municipal emergency response coordinator; and having AV a part of the multi-agency scenario was a huge opportunity as we find ourselves working more closely with them these days too.

“Our (SES) members were also able to practically apply skills that we don’t often see used in our space, particularly around the ropes – it was good skills building. 

“It was also a good opportunity for the incident controllers from each agency to develop a small command team under the control of VicPol and watch how that team worked together to help coordinate the response.”

The training scenario was a good opportunity for the State Coal Mine to test their emergency management procedures and is a crucial part of keeping the prospect of underground mine tours open in the future.

For other local agencies, the training scenario provides the opportunity for members to further enhance their skills.

“It’s an opportunity for our firefighters and members to work with other agencies,” Wonthaggi Fire Brigade second lieutenant Kevin Else explained.

“During this scenario we played a supporting role from above ground, but previously we have run training exercises replicating electrical fire scenarios and extraction of patients.”

Parks Victoria have recently announced on their website that they will reopen walk-in, walk-out tours whilst the drift car works are in progress. Walking tours are scheduled to re-commence in mid-2024. 

Tours were suspended in 2020 when engineering inspections revealed the rail ‘drift car’ and the track it runs on, no longer met modern safety standards.

The State Coal Mine restoration project is expected to be completed in late 2024 or early 2025 according to the Parks Victoria website.