The 63rd Annual Provincial Mine Rescue and First Aid Competition is taking place in Kimberley on Saturday, June 9, 2018. The competition will take place from 8a.m. to 4p.m. at Coronation Park, with the awards banquet being held at the Kimberley Conference Centre.
The public is welcome and encouraged to attend the competition, however the awards banquet is for participants only.
This will be the third consecutive year that the competition is held in Kimberley, however Mayor Don McCormick says it could be the last one for a while.
“They like to move it around the province for two-year stints to accommodate travel for the various teams, but Kimberley is a popular location so they decided to stay another year,” said McCormick. “This would make an awesome permanent home.”
Prior to the Provincial competition, there will also be a regional competition; the BC North, South and Central Mine Rescue Competition on Thursday, June 7, 2018.
Doran Jones, Emergency Preparation Coordinator with the Ministry of Energy and Mines is coordinating the provincial competition. He says that Kimberley has a strong mining history, which is one of the reasons it has been a great location.
“It’s not totally unusual to have the competition in the same place three years in a row,” explained Jones. “If the venue is good for everyone, the Ministry and the City, it makes it a lot easier for organizing as we don’t have to move equipment all over the province. We typically move it around to different Cities to allow those who are coming from all corners of the province to travel a little less.
Jones explained that there are two categories of competition: surface and underground. Jones is the coordinator for all of the underground competitions. There are five teams participating in the underground challenges, and six teams competing in the surface challenges.
Jones says that the competition will be similar to previous years, in that the process will look the same.
“There will be the same types of competitions, for example the surface challenges will include fire rescue, extraction, rope rescue, First Aid, etc.,” said Jones. “However there will be different scenarios and tasks; different types of injuries and challenges for participants to get through.”
Teams are challenged and scored on four tasks. The first is the written/bench task, where participants are tested on their knowledge of the Mine Rescue Manual and rescue equipment and/or techniques (mine rescue lamp, rope skills including knots and mechanical advantage, gas testing equipment and more).
The second test is for fire: the ability to contain or extinguish fires using fire extinguishers, and self-contained breathing apparatus use including patient rescue from smoke filled buildings.
The third challenge is rope and extrication: team skills in a rope challenge including high angle and slope rescue.
The final challenge is First Aid: scenario-based tasks design to test specially skills in First Aid.
He added that the majority of the volunteers for the provincial challenge are Mine and/or Ministry employees, who get the opportunity to be exposed to training that they might not get otherwise.
In terms of preparing for the event, the Head Task Judges and Coordinators start the planning process in October, and in January start working on the details from the scenarios and location all the way down to the catering of the event.
“Typically a week prior we [Judges/Coordinators] will start setting up the tasks and problems,” said Jones. He explained that there is no ‘dress rehearsal’ per-say, but the Head Task Judges will walk through certain aspects of the challenges to ensure everything is set up correctly.
On Friday, June 8 there will be meetings and events for those specifically involved, while the main event starts at 8a.m. on Monday, June 9. The competition will run until approximately 4p.m..
