The Off Road Rescue UnitThe Off-Road Rescue Unit is a highly-trained crew of unpaid volunteer 4x4 owners who are members of recognised four wheel drive clubs in Southern Africa. Members work closely with local, regional and national Emergency Management Services, Disaster Management, the South African Air Force, Civil Aviation (Aeronautical Rescue Co-ordination Centre), the South African Police Services, K9 Search and Rescue, the Mountain Club of South Africa Search & Rescue, and other official and civilian volunteer organisations.
The Unit provides wilderness and urban search and rescue services, transport, logistical support, and radio communications, in rough terrain and urban areas in times of need including civil, national or international emergency. Each year, the Unit receives more than fifty calls for assistance and in more than half of these instances, our resources were required and members were mobilised and deployed. Members of the Unit take part in regular theoretical and practical training exercises at least twice monthly. Training is often held in conjunction with official emergency services and other volunteer organisations and includes such activities as first-aid/medical training, search and rescue procedure, patient extrication, radio communications, helicopter-borne insertion and extraction, map reading, navigation by GPS, maps and compass, rope rescue techniques, mountain rescue training, off-road driving, vehicle recovery, vehicle maintenance and fire fighting. Once a member has attained the necessary level of competence he becomes Rescue Qualified and will become an asset to any search and rescue mission or emergency task. Great satisfaction is derived by members of the Unit from serving their fellow man, but this comes at a high cost in terms of intrusion into family, social and business time, and also the cost of financing equipment. Each member's 4x4 vehicle and the extensive range of equipment it contains, is funded by the member hAn annual training camp, held over a few days towards the end of each year, is where the theory and practice is put to the test with a mock call-out and rescue exercise that can proceed non-stop through the night no matter what the weather, over hundreds of kilometers. During this training camp the members' equipment and preparedness is put to the test to ensure that we are capable of delivering the level of professionalism required. The Unit's administrative structure is such that one telephone call is all that is required to put the whole call-out system into action, resulting in trained volunteer members in fully-equipped 4x4s being ready to leave on a search and rescue or disaster management mission, anywhere in the country within the hour. In addition, the Unit makes a further contribution to the community at large by offering a communications, management and medical infrastructure to organisers of outdoor sporting events such as road-running marathons, cycle races, mountain bike challenges and off-road motor racing events. These events generate income for the Unit which is used to maintain our Mobile Command Post trailers and the wide range of expensive communications and medical equipment they contain. |
ORRU - Nelspruit Gets Busy
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This past week was a week of little sleep for ORRU Nelspruit members. As everyone knows by now, the lowveld and Hoedspruit areas were hit by heavy rains that turned normally small streams into raging rivers.
The rain started at about 3-o-clock in the morning on Teusday 17 Jan. By 07:00 the phone rang and Disaster Management asked our members to be placed on "soft standby", so a code blue was sent out. By 08:00 we were notified that we have been officially activated by disaster management for assistance with possible flooding. Updates were sent to us every hour updating us on the state of the rivers and their flow rates and it was hair raising to see how the flow rates increased every hour. At about 11:00 the flowrate of the Komati river was at 110 cumecs and by Wednesday morning it was up to 2500 cemecs and the Sabie river was sitting at over 3000 cumecs.
Sabie River at Lower Sabie Bridge High Water bridge at Skukuza
Tuesday passed with out too much happening with everybody watching the rivers very closely. On Wednesday morning a few minor calls came in and we assisted some members of the public that got stuck on the side of some of the gravel roads after sliding off the road as well as where access roads were damaged too bad for normal vehicles to get through. Later that morning three of ORRU Nelspruit's members attended a Disater Management meeting in Tonga and according to the stats, a large number of houses along the rivers in the Nkomazi district had been washed away and the first fatality was reported.
In the meanwhile the rivers and rain were causing havoc in Hoedspruit washing away bridges and roads cutting off all access to Hoedspruit. Houses and businesses were getting severly damaged by the rain and raging rivers and cars were washed away.
The Sand Rivier Hoedspruit
Wednesday afternoon saw ORRU assisting with a few minor incidents again as the roads in the area were now soaking wet, slippery and badly damaged from the ongoing rain. At about 20:00 a team cosisting of Q31 Sonet (FTL), M31 Ed, Steven, Albert and Lloyd left Nelspruit to assist ER24 with the rescue of 16 trapped people in the Klaserie/Hoedspruit area. The team spent most of the night fighting their way through mud streams and bush getting bogged down, having to recover each other a few times, trying to find access to these unfortunate people. The team ended up at Hoedspruit AFB the next morning where a chopper was called in to assist. The team was eventually stood down and could return home after a very long night (watch the website for the full story).
On their way home another call came in from the SAPS. A woman was washed away by the river and has gone missing at Mala near Achornhoek and the SAPS had no one to go and look for her as they were busy elsewhere. The team would initially RV with a member of the SAPS at Hazyview, but seeing that they were very close to Mala the SAPS instructed the team to go right ahead and start the search. The team found the body of the lady, bagged it and transported it out to where members of the pathology services were waiting and the body was handed over to them. The team returned home for a well earned rest and was confirmed home at a 15:00 Thursday afternoon.
Another 2 calls came in for assistance during the day. At 19:30 another call came in from disater management and saw a team consisting of M31 Ed (FTL), Q31 Sonet, M39 Fred, M34 Anton, Jacques, Louis & Freddie deployed to search for a vehicle and it's occupants that went off the Jonkmansspruit bridge. Needless to say this was no longer a "spruit" but a raging river. The team searched until the early morning hours along the banks of the river through very dense vegetation with no luck. It was decided to call off the search and resume in the morning with the assistance of the SAAF. The team returned home and was confirmed back at 06:00 Friday morning. The search continued the next morning, but latest reports confirm that nothing has been found yet.
Friday evening saw another call come through from disater management to assist the SAPS the next morning to search for a missing 10 year old and an elderly man and yet another code yellow went out. After talking to the SAPS on Saturday morning the team was stood down to catch a well earned rest and to sort out and dry out their kit.
ORRU was once again praised for their professionalism by all roll players involved.
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