LifeFlight welcomes new docs
Recruits finish rigorous training
A RIGOROUS program at LifeFlight’s Training Academy has prepared the organisation’s newest recruits for life on the front line.
The newly appointed Critical Care Doctors were thrown in the deep end – literally – during Helicopter Underwater Escape Training (HUET), before being suspended several metres in the air during live winch training.
They also had to retrieve crash test dummies from mock car crash scenarios, practice roadside surgeries and practice treating a patient in a high noise and high stress environment, like a house party, to ensure they are familiar with all situations that can be encountered out in the field.
Canadian Garrett Benson will be based at Toowoomba’s RACQ LifeFlight Rescue helicopter base.
Dr Benson has been working at Toowoomba Hospital for the past two years and is looking forward to challenging his skills in a different environment.
“I’ve got some colleagues at RACQ LifeFlight Rescue and there’s a heavy presence of the service in the Darling Downs, so I’ve always been curious and so I applied,” Garrett said.
LifeFlight recruits some of the most highly-skilled doctors from around the world and within Australia.
The hand-picked few then undergo rigorous training, to qualify as medical retrieval registrars and ultimately work on board the RACQ LifeFlight Rescue helicopters.
One of the most daunting scenarios the trainees go through, is the HUET at the LifeFlight Training Academy in Brisbane.
The doctors are put through a mock helicopter crash and must free themselves to swim to safety.