RFS to help mine staff respond to road crashes

The New South Wales Rural Fire Service RFS will join mining company employees in the state's far-west to improve emergency services at a road-crash blackspot in a trial believed to be the first of its kind.

Many areas of the region have gone without staff to respond to road crashes within the first 60 minutes after a serious road incident, due to declining volunteer rates and low populations, according to the RFS.

Eight members of the emergency response team ERT of Aurelia Metals are now qualified to attend road crashes.

Superintendent Craig Warwick is the RFS Far West district manager, and says the mine site is located in one of 12 blackspots in NSW where roadside assistance response time is greater than 60 minutes.

The hope is that the mine's ERT will help halve the response time.

Rural areas tend to see higher rates of road crashes due to the fact that rural areas tend to have higher rates of road crashes.

The trial is the first-ever road crash rescue partnership with the RFS.

The mine's ERT already liaises with the NSW Ambulance Service to help with life-threatening situations in the wider community, to help stabilise patients until paramedics arrive, but this is the first time it is accredited to respond to road crashes.

The team is expected to be operational in about a month.

The ERT members now work as RFS volunteers in addition to their work at the mine.

A further 10 members are proposed to be added to the ERT's total strength of 29 over the next year.

Darren Mills is Aurelia Metals' safety and training advisor at Hera.

The team responded to approximately four callouts between the mine site and the local community over the last six months.

Given the frequency of incidents, Mr Mills said it would be well-equipped to respond to simultaneous call-outs.

He said that we have the members and the resources from Aurelia to respond to a scenario on-site and in the community at the same time.

In the last five years, volunteer rates for the RFS have dropped by about 5 per cent in the Far West region.

Our community members are ageing and families are moving off farms. He said that our average member age is about 50 in the Nymagee area.

Warwick says the next generation is reluctant to take on farming businesses and large corporations are buying up the lands instead.

He said that he hopes that more big corporations, especially the miners, come on because it can work well with the RFS.

The RFS has stationed an emergency response vehicle at Aurelia's Hera Mine for use by the ERT, costing about $150,000.