Fire, blood and a stoned pilot

HANDLE WITH CARE: Kawakawa teenager Maddison Cherrington braving a fireball as she fights a blaze triggered by a mock plane crash in Saturday's Youth in Emergency Services exercise.

Fifteen Mid North teenagers were put to the test on Saturday in a large-scale exercise involving a plane crash, people lost in the bush, badly injured patients trapped in a car and a massive fire.

The teenagers, aged 15 to 18, all from the Kawakawa-Moerewa area, had spent the previous six weekends with each of the emergency services, including Red Cross, police, the Fire Service, Rural Fire and Civil Defence.

Saturday's exercise was the climax of this year's Youth in Emergency Services (YES) programme, and a chance for the trainees to put everything they had learned into practice.

Once the morning mist cleared the teens were delivered by helicopter to the grounds of Moerewa's Affco meat works, where they were confronted with the blazing wreckage of a plane. They had to put out the fire, assess and remove the injured passengers, then search for the missing pilot.

He was found, hurt and disoriented, several hundred metres away in the bush.

Next they were called to a car crash, with four people trapped in the wreckage and lots of fake blood. They used the jaws of life to cut up the car, then carefully extricated the patients. Others tackled a fire in a giant stack of pallets, simulating a collapsed building.

Sixteen-year-old Raiha Kopa, from Moerewa, said the day had taught her about teamwork, communication and adapting to new situations.

Her favourite part had been the search for the missing pilot and learning to communicate with the Search and Rescue base by radio. The pilot's confusion, caused by head injuries, had been compounded by munching on mushrooms he'd found in the forest.

"It was awesome. It was cool to find him," she said, adding that she was now considering volunteering with the Kawakawa Fire Brigade.

The aim of the scheme, funded by the Ministry of Youth Development and trialled last year in Kaikohe, is to get young people more involved in their communities and encourage them to volunteer.

Among the emergency services personnel taking part on Saturday was 18-year-old Parehuia Tito-Paraone, who started as a YES trainee last year and is now a member of the Kaikohe Fire Brigade.

"It's really satisfying to know you can do stuff like this and help people who need it. I'd recommend it 100,000 per cent," she said.

The participants were nominated by schools, iwi and social services.

They will graduate at a formal dinner in Kawakawa on June 20, and will be invited to volunteer for two months with the emergency service of their choice.