Victoria Police search and rescue squad officers put lives on line to save people in peril
MORE people have been on the international space station than have qualified to work for Victoria Police’s elite search and rescue squad.
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MORE people have been on the international space station than have qualified to work for Victoria Police’s search and rescue squad.
And of those 173 successful officers, just 78 have been given a fulltime position since the squad was formed 58 years ago.
It’s an elite commando style unit and only the very best need apply.
More than 100 officers expressed an interest in joining the 20-person squad when a rare selection process began in March last year.
At its conclusion, in June this year, six were still standing. Just.
“It’s harder to get into the squad than be Chief Commissioner,” one of the recruits joked.
Even getting through the training doesn’t guarantee a place in Search and Rescue.
It’s an average five-year wait for a position to come up - some have waited a decade - and even if you do get in, it’s another five years of on the job training to become a competent operative.
But those who do get in earn skills that even James Bond would envy.
“It all sounds exciting, but we do a lot of cold, wet and miserable work,” trainer Sgt James Bate said.
The wannabe recruits are put through the longest training course in Victoria Police, 14 weeks.
They are blindfolded, put into confined spaces, sleep-deprived, made cold, wet, muddy and hungry - and told to outperform those who had not faced the same challenges.
“We basically push them to the point of physical exhaustion and then set them difficult mental challenges so we can see their true person, their real personality,” Senior Sgt Barry Gibson said.
“We get them out of their comfort zone and push them to their fatigue limits because we need to see not just resilience, but what decisions they are making when all they want to do is collapse.
“Ultimately, any person we allow in the squad, we need to be 100 per cent happy with our life in their hands - we need to have confidence that they will be there for me.
“So it may be a fair bit of effort to get in, but by golly, you will know that they have earned it.”
The squad deal with about 1200 jobs a year – anything from retrieving evidence, such as body parts in the Maribyrnong or a car into Wyndham Vale Lake, to searching for missing people such as teenager Luke Shambrook at Lake Eildon National Park.
“The sphere of operations is much greater in SAR than any other squad in the force,” Sen Sgt Gibson said.
“It’s pretty gruesome some of the time, and can be very challenging, pretty demanding, but then you’ll have that job (Shambrook) and feel great about it, then bang - back to reality again.
“You can go on a job and not come back for a week - you have to be prepared for anything and everything,”
But there’s an average wait of five years to get into the squad because of job satisfaction and no one wanting to leave.
“The hardest job in Victoria Police is on the van - we know we have one of the best jobs in the force,” Sen-Constable Nicole Bath, the only female in the squad, said.
TIMELINE
March 2014: Course announced. 100 officers express interest.
June: Information sessions.
July: 47 apply to join.
Oct: physical assessments - 22 pass.
Dec: Four-day pre-course assessment camp - 16 pass
Jan 2015: Selection panel - Top 12 assessed and 7 pass
Feb: Dive medical examinations
March - June: The course. Seven take part; six pass.
Average of five years to get into the squad
Another five years of on the job training to become competent operative
The basic training
Nine weeks of commercial diving
Two weeks vertical rescue
One week boat handling and water and air operations
Two weeks bush and alpine navigation