|
Off-Road Rescue Unit -
Emergency Incidents Report - 2010
|
|
No.
|
Incident / Location
|
Date
|
What
Happened
|
| 15/2010 |
Missing hiker
Mpumalanga |
19 June |
At 23h30 on Saturday 19th June 2010, T68 Simon received a call from
Sean Buchanan of Mountain Search & Rescue asking for ORRU assistance to search for a missing hiker in Mpumalanga. Initial
reports indicated that the hiker, a 55-year-old male, was relatively experienced and had left his hiking party to seek help
after the group had become lost while hiking in the Graskop area of Mpumalanga. Read
more about this call-out here. |
| 14/2010 |
Soccer World Cup |
20 May |
The Off Road Rescue Unit was officially placed on standby by Rescue
South Africa for the duration of the Soccer World Cup. |
| 13/2010 |
Injured hiker
Magaliesberg |
09 May |
A hiker fell in the Tonquani Gorge in the Magaliesberg Mountains and had to be
rescued. Read
more about this call-out here. |
| 12/2010 |
Missing schoolchildren
Pretoria |
19 Apr |
At about 15h30 T50 Alan received a call from Trevor Viljoen, a manager at Netcare
911, requesting the Unit's assistance to search for two missing children aged 9 and 11 in the Pretoria area. Read
more about this call-out here. |
| 11/2010 |
Missing hikers
Loskop Dam
Mpumalanga |
04 Apr |
MSAR requested the assistance of ORRU to search for two missing
hikers at Loskop Dam in Mpumalanga. The hikers were found OK before teams left. |
| 10/2010 |
Missing jogger
Limpopo |
03 Apr |
Netcare requested the assistance of ORRU to locate a missing jogger
at a resort outside Pietersburg. A Code Yellow was issued and seven members were available. Fortunately the subject was found
alive and well before the team was dispatched. |
| 9/2010 |
Missing child
Victory Park |
30 Mar |
A four-year-old child had gone missing in Victory Park in
Johannesburg. A Code Yellow was issued and 20 members, divided into two teams, were available. As members were on their way to
the rendezvous point, news came through that the child had been found drowned in a residential swimming pool. |
| 8/2010 |
Stranded mountain climbers
Mpumalanga |
28 Mar |
A group of Mountain Club of South Africa hikers had spent the
weekend in the area but had run into a potential problem after finishing a route too late in the evening to egress safely to
the car park. All were safely rescued by a combined ORRU and MSAR team. Read
more about this call-out here. |
| 7/2010 |
Missing hiker
Limpopo |
21 Mar |
 A team was dispatched to the far north of the Limpopo Province to
search for a missing hiker who was a diabetic and had no medication with him. He was found in the early hours of the morning
unharmed. Read more about this call-out here. |
| 6/2010 |
Flash floods
Johannesburg |
19 Mar |
ORRU members were placed on Code Blue standby after days of heavy
rain in the Johannesburg area. |
| 5/2010 |
Flash floods
Johannesburg |
26 Feb |
After heavy rains, there were flash floods in the Johannesburg
North area in which a woman was drowned when her car was swept off a bridge, and a Code Blue was issued to advise members of the situation. A call-out was not required. |
| 4/2010 |
Crashed aircraft
Magaliesburg |
03 Feb |
Early in the morning a farmer near Magaliesburg found an aircraft
wheel on his farm. The Air Rescue Coordination Centre called ORRU to place us on standby for a call-out. A Code Yellow was
issued but 30 minutes later ARCC called to say that the burnt-out wreckage of the plane containing two deceased pilots had
been found on the farm. |
| 3/2010 |
Earthquake
Haiti |
13 Jan |
After a major earthquake in Haiti in the Caribbean, the South
African National Disaster Management Centre requested ORRU to make three members available to join the Rescue South Africa
mission to assist the earthquake victims. Three members were selected and joined Rescue SA on the 10-day international mission
to Haiti. |
| 2/2010 |
Flooded river
Soweto |
09 Jan |
The South African Police Service required the assistance of the Off
Road Rescue Unit at a flooded river in Soweto where a victim had been washed downriver. Seven teams responded, but before they
could be deployed, the victim's body was recovered. |
| 1/2010 |
Abducted child
Soshanguve |
02 Jan |
A child had been abducted into the veld in Soshanguve and the
police requested ORRU's urgent assistance. 12 teams were available. Members mounted an extensive foot search in wet
conditions, but nothing was found and the teams returned home at 20h30. |
