On Saturday 30 July 2011 a member of a CBC party broke his ankle whilst descending the east face of Johns Peak in the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve. Contact was made with rescue services via mobile phone and a 10-figure MGRS location was provided from a GPS (with no mobile phone service available, the normal procedure is to activate a PLB if immediate assistance is required). A helicopter winched extraction was made, as the regrowth vegetation at the site was extremely dense. The remaining party members reached the Camel Back fire trail just on dark, after assisting the paramedic to move the casualty 20 metres to the winch point. The member is recovering well.
A debrief was sought from the ACT Ambulance Service (the incident controller). Procedures used on the day require no changes and CBC was praised for its general level of preparedness for accidents such as this and the safety equipment carried on bushwalks.
Note that it has finally been agreed that locations should be provided in latitude/longitude – degrees minutes.decimal minutes. Typically, in your GPSr, set the Position Format to hddd mm.mmm
