A local search and rescue team has been presented with a Certificate of Appreciation following their participation in a search and rescue training exercise last year.
Queensland Remote Area Tracking (QRAT) was presented with the certificate after working alongside the Australian Defence Force, SES, Police, Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES), council and other organisations in Exercise Mackay Ready in November 2021.
On the day, organisations were given a scenario and an area of ground to search for missing people and tasked with facilitating the extraction of those simulated missing people.
QFES Emergency Management Coordinator Carla Duck presented Matthew Munchow and the QRAT team with the Assistant Commissioner’s Certificate of Appreciation, saying there were over 200 people at the exercise and scenarios presented to the organisations were extremely difficult.
“We had a good debrief after and had a lot of learnings,” Ms Duck said.
“It was very short notice, I think we got two weeks to organise that, so it was very last minute so thank you very much for being involved.”
QRAT volunteer Terry Norris says QRAT’s presence at the exercise was also seen as an opportunity to raise the organisation’s profile.
QRAT is a self-funded search and rescue team, founded four years ago by people with a background in military and emergency services.
After the presentation of the certificate, QRAT gave QFES staff a tour of their purpose-built trailer, explaining the organisation’s vast capabilities in times of emergency.
“There’s stuff in that trailer that, at this point, other emergency agencies don’t have the capability of,” Mr Norris said.
The team has been involved in many search and rescue operations since its inception and Terry says they average a callout a month.
“We try to stay fluid in our approach on those jobs so if tracking somebody’s not an option, then we move into other scenarios where we use different lost person behaviour scenarios.
“When people go missing, they very often follow certain patterns depending on the type of person and what they were doing at the time.”
QRAT works alongside SES and other organisations, searching arduous terrain that other organisations may not be able to navigate to either find a missing person or eliminate an area.
Unlike other organisations, QRAT is self-funded.
“Funding’s our biggest thing; we don’t receive any government funding,” said Mr Norris.
To find out more about QRAT and how you can help keep them on the road, visit qrat.org.au.
Brenton Harris (SES), Derek Drummond, Jason Pullen, Terry Norris, Carla Duck (QFES), Jock Crome (QFES), Matthew Munchow, Tony Johnstone (Rural Fire Service), Paul Crowe, Seaforth Mackenzie and Nathan Gelhaar (front). Photo credit: Sam Gillespie
QRAT participated in Exercise Mackay Ready, a simulated search and rescue operation in November 2021. Photos supplied: Terry Norris
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