By Callum Ludwig
A pair of rescues in bushland near the Yarra Valley have provided a prompt reminder to be wary of your surroundings when out hiking, sightseeing or enjoying other activities in remote areas.
The Emergency Plus app can help take out the stress of describing your location in an emergency situation and helps emergency services get to you as promptly as possible.
Ambulance Victoria’s Regional Director of Clinical Operations for the Metropolitan Region Michael Georgiou said an emergency can catch you off-guard in a remote or unfamiliar place which may be difficult to describe, such as a beach, unfamiliar road or bush track.
“We know that emergencies can happen anywhere, anytime so it’s always best to be prepared,” he said.
“We encourage anyone travelling to a remote location to download the EmergencyPlus app, which is free to download and uses smart phones’ in-built GPS functionality to help a caller provide the Triple Zero Victoria (000) with location details.”
A woman in her 20s and a man in his 80s both required treatment and assistance from an air ambulance on Friday 19 and Sunday 21 January respectively.
The woman was winched from a steep and exposed section of the Wells Cave Track on Sugarloaf Peak, while emergency services personnel were also required to provide initial first aid and direct about 20 hikers up a rock climb and off the track to make the scene safe.
The man had fallen 10 to 30 metres from Keppel Lookout, requiring a flight paramedic to winch him to safety and a ropes team to secure the patient, provide first aid and help the man’s family and other first responders retreat back up from the steep ground to a safe spot.
In an emergency, Mr Georgiou said you can open the app and the caller will be able to tell the call-taker their location coordinates, as well as three words that can be used to pinpoint their exact location.
“The ‘what3words’ function works offline, so it can be used in remote areas with poor data connections and can confirm an exact location quickly and accurately using just three words,” he said.
“If travelling to rural and remote regions of Victoria you may also consider carrying a Personal Location Beacon (PLB), known as an emergency beacon. When activated, a PLB sends an emergency signal via satellite to emergency services.”
The what3words system has given every three square metres of the earth a unique three-word identifier that can be quickly relayed in an emergency, is as accurate as GPS coordinates and simpler to understand than trying to make sense of longitude and latitude coordinates.
A new pin drop feature is also incorporated in the app, where a location pin can be dropped on a person’s location.
The Emergency Plus app can be downloaded from the App Store and Google Play.
