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>> Get a full description here of the emergency call-outs to which the Rescue Unit has responded
Join the Off-Road Rescue Unit
The Off-Road Rescue Unit
is looking for new members. Are you fit and active? Do you own a 4x4? Are you a member of a 4x4 club? Do you feel that you have a personal
duty to give back something to your community and your country? By joining ORRU, you could play an exciting role in this group of committed
volunteers.
The Unit consists of a highly-trained crew of unpaid volunteer 4x4 owners who are members of the Four Wheel Drive Club of Southern Africa and other clubs belonging to the Association of All-Wheel Drive Clubs of South Africa. Members work closely with local, regional and national emergency services, Disaster Management, the South African Air Force, Civil Aviation, the South African Police Services, K9 Search and Rescue, the Mountain Club of South Africa, and other official and civilian volunteer organisations.
The Unit provides the public with wilderness and urban search and rescue services, transport, logistical support, and radio communications, in all terrain and weather, in times of need including civil or national emergency.
Members of the Unit take part in regular theoretical and practical training exercises twice monthly. Training is often held in conjunction with official emergency services and other volunteer organisations and includes such activities as radio communications, search and rescue procedure, helicopter-borne insertion and extraction, map reading, GPS and navigation, rope rescue techniques, mountain rescue training, off-road driving, vehicle recovery, vehicle maintenance, fire fighting, first-aid/medical training and patient extrication.
Great satisfaction is derived by members of the Unit from serving their fellow man, but this does come at a high cost in terms of intrusion into family, social and business time, and also the cost of financing equipment. Each member's 4x4 vehicle and the extensive range of equipment it contains, is funded by the member himself.
An annual training camp, held over a few days each year, is where the theory and practice is put to the test with a mock call-out and rescue exercise that can proceed non-stop through days and nights no matter what the weather, over hundreds of kilometres. During this training camp the members' equipment and preparedness is put to the test to ensure that we are capable of delivering the level of professionalism required of us.
The Unit's administrative structure is such that one telephone call is all that is required to put the whole call-out system into action, resulting in trained volunteer members in fully-equipped 4x4s being ready to leave for anywhere in the country within as little as one hour.
In addition, the Unit makes a further contribution to the community at large by offering a communications and medical infrastructure to organisers of outdoor sporting events such as road-running marathons, cycle races, mountain bike challenges and off-road motor racing events. These events generate income for the Unit, which is used to maintain our Mobile Command Post trailers and the wide range of expensive communications and medical equipment they contain.
The Unit is looking for physically active people who are passionate about making South Africa a better place and answering a call for help from their fellow man. You do not need to have any prior training. All the skills required to be an effective search and rescue volunteer will be provided within the Unit, and generally free of charge. What you do need to bring with you is a willingness to get out of bed in the early hours of a cold and rainy morning and to speed off into the darkness to go and look for the child of a total stranger, and for that to make you feel good. If it will, then we would like to hear from you.
We will give a multimedia presentation to you and your partner so that you can get a deeper overview of what we do, and if you are motivated by what you see, your training will begin and a new facet of your life will have opened.
For further information please feel free to contact the following:
Ivor 083-326-3020
> Back to the Rescue Unit call-outs page
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