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Chockstone Forum - Accidents & Injuries

Report Accidents and Injuries

Author
Reporting Accident Locations at Arapiles
kieranl
25-Mar-2016
9:30:24 PM
Anyone who has ever had to call 000 (Triple-zero) for a climbing rescue will have struck the location problem. The first thing they ask is “Police, Fire or Ambulance?” and when you answer you’re connected to your required service. The next question is “What is your location?”. As you try to explain where you are they interrupt to ask you what the closest intersection is. You then try to explain that A. you don’t know and B. you’re so far from that intersection for it to be meaningless. Then you go around in circles for a bit.

Also spare a thought for the Emergency services. The pager for a rescue at Arapiles will give the location as “Wimmera Highway-Centenary Park Drive-Summit Road”. How useful is that for finding someone up on the Bluffs for instance?

Over the last couple of years local Emergency services have been working to improve the situation at Arapiles. The Mount Arapiles Rescue Plan has developed a set of location names that are now registered with ESTA which runs the 000 service. There are two sets of names, one set for Emergency Services Assembly Points and the other for climbing areas.

If you’re climbing in The Atridae for example and need 000, when they ask for location respond “Mount Arapiles, The Atridae Area”. They will now know where you are and do not need to know the nearest intersection and the responding services can pick the appropriate assembly point.

I have just started putting the climbing area locations up on TheCrag website. At the end of each area and sub-area description I will add a line headed “Emergency Location:” followed by “Mount Arapiles, Area Name”.

I’m doing this because while the location names relate to the climbing area names, not all sub-areas have their own names. It’s also a prompt as to how to respond to 000 when they ask the location question because most of us are going to be a bit frazzled when we make that call. To some extent the names are the bleeding obvious but I think it's worth being explicit. There are few things worse than dealing with a 000 operator who doesn't understand what you're telling them.

At this stage I’m not going to put the Assembly Points in each area. The responders will work out the Assembly Points from the accident location. I can see that people may need to report incidents at Assembly Points rather than climbs (fire, car accident, illness etc), so they need to be listed somewhere. Any suggestions?

Thanks are due here to Andrew Clark who set the ball rolling a couple of years ago and Zoe Wilkinson of Parks who picked it up and ran with it.

I've started at Bushranger Bluff and will systematically work around.
PeterW
25-Mar-2016
11:49:06 PM
That's excellent news!

Any chance of getting the simple list of climbing area locations posted here?

ajfclark
26-Mar-2016
6:41:52 AM
Really glad to hear something did eventually come of my suggestion. Hopefully it'll lead to a faster response and an easier time for people making a call to 000.
kieranl
26-Mar-2016
9:18:43 AM
What do you do if you're reporting an incident to 000 and give the correct Arapiles location and the operator comes back to you asking for the nearest intersection.

This shouldn't happen but we all know that things happen that shouldn't.

Your response should be : The location I have provided is a reqistered Common Place Name.
kieranl
26-Mar-2016
9:22:56 AM
On 25/03/2016 PeterW wrote:
>That's excellent news!
>
>Any chance of getting the simple list of climbing area locations posted
>here?
I'll look at formatting that and getting it up. I've also sent the info to ajfclark to see about getting it up on the VCC site and will try to get it into Argus. There are some good graphics too. If they're on the VCC site we could link back from here.
We did hope to get this stuff into the recent guide but the deadline (and space) was too tight.
dan_b
26-Mar-2016
10:16:31 AM
Excellent work to all involved. Thank you.
Jayford4321
26-Mar-2016
11:32:29 AM
Place names and,
>To some extent the names are the bleeding obvious
Good pun kman!


Seriously, thanks and well done to all concerned, and we hope it seldom if ever requires use.

Sabu
29-Mar-2016
9:07:30 AM
Great idea. I was thinking about this while up there this weekend.
ademmert
29-Mar-2016
9:22:44 AM
nice one Kieran
kieranl
14-Apr-2016
10:14:48 PM
OK, these are all in TheCrag.

There are a few oddities, some areas really detailed and others with gaps that I didn't notice until I started entering them; Werewolf buttress is one example. But it's a good start. At least services should be heading for the correct carparks. Please feel free to send me suggestions for improvements and we'll perhaps be able to put together an update for ESTA - that will probably take a while to get through.

Here's a list of the car-park (or assembly point) names that are registered with ESTA. Of use if someone is ill or injured at Arapiles but not actually climbing. It's not necessary to give both the climbing area location and the carpark name - the assembly point is worked out from the climbing area location.

Mount Arapiles Telstra Tower Carpark
Mount Arapiles Summit Picnic Area
Bluff Picnic Area
Melville Cave- Bushrangers Bluff Carpark
Taylors Rock - Declaration Crag Carpark
Organ Pipes to King Rat Carpark
Plaque Area Carpark
Castle Crag Carpark
Pharos Gully Carpark
The Watchtower Faces Carpark
The Northern Group Carpark
Campbells Kingdom Carpark
Mitre Rock Carpark

freesolo
3-May-2016
7:31:02 AM
i was at frog a few years back and wanted to report a bushfire, but after 10 minutes of "i am in the national park, there is no f-ing intersection" i hung up. not my paddock ))
Dr Nick
3-May-2016
9:23:01 AM
I'm not sure if it'll solve all the problems, but there's also the "Emergency+" app for various phones. This gives location data if you've got GPS, as well as trying to work out nearest cross street, etc.. This might work better for "remote" locations, especially if there's a bit of confusion about the naming (is it Arapiles or Djurite? Do you need to tell them Arapiles-Tooan State Park?).
kieranl
3-May-2016
12:15:13 PM
On 3/05/2016 Dr Nick wrote:
>I'm not sure if it'll solve all the problems, but there's also the "Emergency+"
>app for various phones. This gives location data if you've got GPS, as
>well as trying to work out nearest cross street, etc.. This might work
>better for "remote" locations, especially if there's a bit of confusion
>about the naming (is it Arapiles or Djurite? Do you need to tell them Arapiles-Tooan
>State Park?).
>
Read the OP.
kieranl
3-May-2016
12:41:56 PM
Sorry if that was terse, haven't time for a more detailed response right now

ajfclark
3-May-2016
4:49:15 PM
In case it's hard to pick from the block of text up top, if you call 000 and tell them you are at Mount Arapiles the following crags are recognised:

Animal Acts Boulder
Atridae Area, The
Bard Buttress Area
Bluffs Area
Bushranger Bluff Area
Campbells Kingdom Area
Castle Crag Area
Central Gully Left Side Area
Central Gully Right Side Area
Charity Buttress Area
Chicken Boulder, The
Colosseum Wall Area
Death Row Area
Declaration Crag Area
Eskimo Nell Area
Fang Buttress Area
Flight Deck Area, The
Golden Streak / Central Gully Boulders
Gonzo / Crank Start Boulders
Good Morning Arapiles Boulder
Grotto Wall Area
Harlequin Cracks Area
Henry Bolte Wall Area
High Dive Gully Area
Hum Terrace Area
Hurts Wall Area
Intrepid Gully
Kachoong Area
King Rat Gully Area
Kitten Wall Area
Lower Curtain Wall Area
Mari Area
Mitre Rock North Area
Mitre Rock South Area
Morfydd Wall Area
Mysteries Gully Area
New Image Area
Organ Pipes Area, The
PB Gully Area
Pharos Area
Pharos Gully Area
Pilot Error Area
Pinch Arete / Swing Wing Boulders
Pinnacle Face / Tip Toe Ridge Area
Plaque Rock area
Preludes Area
Rabbit Boulder
Skyline Walls Area
Squeeze Test Boulder
Superman / Around the World Boulders
Tiger Wall Area
Tjuringa Wall Area
Upper Curtain Wall Area
Upper Yesterday Gully Area
Voodoo Area
Watchtower Faces Area
Yesterday Gully Area

Rescuers have a list of carparks/staging areas, Grid references, etc associated with each and will know where to go.
technogeekery
9-May-2016
1:51:06 PM
As Dr Nick says, check the Emergency + app (iPhone & Android) as it is specifically designed to give you quick GPS location for emergency responders - and works anywhere.

ajfclark
9-May-2016
2:04:31 PM
While I think GPS is great in open areas, it's less useful in complicated terrain. GPS can be problematic in gullies (and days with heavy cloud for some devices etc) and I'm not sure GPS coordinates can be (easily) mapped back to the area name to give responders the cliff name and corresponding staging location.

Certainly when I get paged to something at Arapiles, I'd prefer to know the name of the climbing location rather than some GPS coordinates.

Duang Daunk
9-May-2016
3:29:49 PM
On 9/05/2016 ajfclark wrote:
>While I think GPS is great in open areas, it's less useful in complicated
>terrain. GPS can be problematic in gullies (and days with heavy cloud for
>some devices etc) and I'm not sure GPS coordinates can be (easily) mapped
>back to the area name to give responders the cliff name and corresponding
>staging location.
>
>Certainly when I get paged to something at Arapiles, I'd prefer to know
>the name of the climbing location rather than some GPS coordinates.

I wouldn't be unhappy if the wokka wokka pilot coming to get me has my GPS co-ords.

If responders don't have GPS co-ords for their staging locats, or can't translate that and or proximity to a map of the area, then we are in trouble for sure till they get their act further together.
Dr Nick
9-May-2016
4:46:19 PM
Yeah, I realise you've got Arapiles nailed down, so perhaps it wasn't the best example. Maybe "Taipan Wall" would be a better one. Essentially somewhere you've got a "climbers' name" and an official name, or even worse, a climber's name that matches an official name of somewhere else! (Porters Pass at Blackheath is about 1.5km from the climbing area of that name).

I hadn't seen you mention the app, and thought it might complement your work (who knows, is it able to pull the geographic place names in so that even a bumbly who picks up the phone can call in Bushranger Bluff?)
kieranl
9-May-2016
5:14:22 PM
The Emergency+ app is fine, I've got it on my phone, and it's been mentioned in other threads, but it really only does two things : first it gives you the correct emergency numbers and it displays the GPS coordinates in large friendly letters for you to read out to the operator. It doesn't hook back into emergency services system.

Definitely really useful in the Grampians and anywhere else. At Arapiles I would probably use the app to call 000 because it's fewer taps to make the call, and give the location name, Yes emergency services can find a grid reference on a map and then work out a rendezvous point but you really want to minimise the amount of navigating people have to do under pressure.

There are 20 messages in this topic.

 

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