General News
19 September, 2023
Emergency services work together
EMERGENCY services joined forces to take part in a mock incident response scenario recently.
EMERGENCY services joined forces to take part in a mock incident response scenario recently.
Cobden Police and Cobden CFA combined with Fonterra, Ambulance Victoria, Local SES, Fire Rescue Victoria, Corangamite Shire, and other stakeholders to conduct the joint Emergency Management Exercise.
Cobden Police sergeant Craig Jenkins, who led the scenario, said the exercise was designed to test and challenge how local emergency services groups and commercial stakeholders respond to a developing situation requiring an immediate emergency response.
“The scenario provided a ‘live’ time practical exercise and explored how each emergency service and stakeholder responds to work through the various challenges associated with an emergency incident,” he said.
“It was a valuable exercise with great benefits in building on existing relationships and establishing new working groups across our local area and beyond.”
Sgt Jenkins said it was “extremely beneficial” to see in a controlled environment how each agency works through their specific problems.
“We created an environment whereby we could start to appreciate each other’s responsibilities and competing priorities as we worked through the mock incident,” he said.
“Normally our experiences are in live time where we become time poor and reactive, and this doesn’t always allow us to appreciate what challenges each agency is trying to control.
“This type of exercise only helps to build on our emergency service workers experience and knowledge which is something you can’t just hand to people.”
Sgt Jenkins said the participation of each agency and stakeholder was integral to create a “dynamic and fluid understanding of how we do things and why we do things as we respond and react to control and remedy an emergency management incident”.
“Everyone walked away with some learnings to take back to their groups and review for themselves, which is what we wanted to achieve,” he said.
“The participation and engagement from all involved was extremely beneficial to the greater Cobden community as we, emergency services providers, seek to develop and build our capacity to provide a safer environment for everyone in the area.
“I’d like to thank all involved and particularly Fonterra for their cooperation and assistance in making the day a success.”