NEW TYPE OF FLARE USED

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31177, 29 September 1966, Page 14

NEW TYPE OF FLARE USED

Road Accident Exercise

Members of the Christchurch ambulance division and the Cashmere combined division of the St. John Ambulance Brigade last evening staged a road accident exercise.

The exercise was based on a report that a vehicle had gone over a steep bank near the top entrance to Victoria park and that about six persons were injured. Members of the motor accident inquiry branch at the Christchurch Central Police Station and the Transport Department also took part in the exercise.

The patients were members of the second Christchurch battalion of the Boys’ Brigade and two senior scouts from the Hillmorten group. A new type of road accident flare was used, providing excellent illumination for 15 minutes. A wrecking company made a breakdown vehicle available. Tubular steel stretchers, some with sledge-type runners on them an I special safety harness for the stretchers were used to raise those “injured” from the “wrecked” vehicle to the road. The Cashmere combined divisional superintendent, Mr A. Shapcott, was in charge of the exercise.

Welcomed.—Mrs R. M. Smith, who has taken over as matron of the Tuarangi Hospital, Ashburton, and Dr. R. S. Hemmings, a psychiatric physician from Australia, were welcomed by the North Canterbury Hospital Board at its meeting yesterday.