Switched-on Cb Buff Helps In Bush Rescue
Newcastle Herald
Monday February 16, 1998
WHEN electronics buff Adam McGrath, of East Maitland, switched on his CB radio on Saturday he could never have imagined that he would help rescue an injured teenager later that night.
About 6pm the 16-year-old heard a call for help from someone trying to contact the Ambulance Service after a teenage camper injured himself at Barrington Tops.
The 14-year-old had a serious arm injury and needed to be hospitalised.
Due to difficulties with radio communications most of the messages had to be relayed from the rescue party via CB to ambulance control in Newcastle.
Adam and another CB operator and an Australian Citizens Radio Emergency Monitors member, Mr Martin Howells, of Cessnock, provided communications support for Barrington Guest House staff, ambulance control and Dungog SES volunteers.
`We had to call the rescue helicopter and keep everyone in touch with what was happening,' Adam said yesterday.
`He (the injured camper) had to be taken to the guest house and we passed messages on about his condition.'
At times the link with the two operators was the only form of contact the rescue party had with ambulance control in Newcastle.
Both operators maintained the communication link for three hours until the patient reached the Hunter Westpac rescue helicopter, which was waiting at Barrington Guest House.
Communications were made difficult by another operator who tried to jam the UHF CB repeater being used.
`Someone was being really stupid and kept trying to block out messages by the sound of TV shows,' Adam said.
`We were lucky that the important messages got through,' he said.
Adam will now train to become a member of Australian Citizens Radio Emergency Monitors, a voluntary monitoring service on the CB emergency channels that relays calls for assistance to the required services.
© 1998 Newcastle Herald