Fire and ambulance personnel being trained in resuscitation techniques. (0564012)
SARK’S Fire Service and ambulance personnel are adding another string to the island’s medical emergency services’ bow.
They are currently being trained by Royal Lifesaving Society instructors in resuscitation techniques and should soon be qualified to use defibrillators and other lifesaving equipment.
The training course currently taking place – 12 hours of what looked to me like some pretty intensive instruction and practice – came about almost by accident, as Kevin Adams explained to me.
He attended a major incident exercise in Guernsey last year and on his return asked the island’s medical officer, Dr Frank Teunisse, what to him would constitute a major incident in Sark.
‘Two heart attacks in different parts of the island at the same time,’ was the doctor’s perhaps surprising response. Dr Teunisse went on to explain that this was because there was only one defibrillator and it was kept at the Medical Centre.
‘That, in simple terms, is what led to us getting this equipment and learning how to use it,’ said Mr Adams.
Andy Remfrey, who is a Royal Lifesaving Society national training assessor, was in charge of the session I attended. He paid tribute to the enthusiasm of those Sark residents taking part and said that they will regularly be kept up to speed because they are assessed every three months.
Although the volunteers – like so much of what happens in Sark, the fire appliances and ambulance are manned on a voluntary basis – have most of the kit they need, Mr Remfrey explained that some of it needs replacing regularly.
That being the case, no doubt donations in this respect will be gratefully received by the Sark Fire Brigade.
One of the drawbacks of living in Sark – and there are very few indeed – is the cost of electricity (now about 40p a unit) and, if readers will excuse the pun, the ever-increasing price of oil means that there is little likelihood of light at the end of this particularly dark tunnel in the foreseeable future.
That perhaps explains why a significant percentage of the island’s adult population decided to forsake an evening in front of the television for a presentation from Alderney Renewable Energy Ltd., as represented by the company’s chief executive Paul Clark and a director, Stuart Trought.
The presentation was organised by Sark’s General Purposes and Advisory and Pilotage committees and introduced by Roger Olsen, who gave a detailed sequence of events since GP&A were asked by Chief Pleas to look at the potential for ‘green’ energy.
The Alderney company’s presentation centred on using the tremendous tidal flow within Sark’s territorial waters and some of the statistics were clearly impressive. One stood out for me: when tidal flow was compared with wind generation, an eight-knot flow equalled a wind speed of about 240 miles an hour because water is more than 800 times denser than air.
Mr Clark said that the advantage of harvesting power from tidal flow was that it was predictable and large amounts could be harvested, although he stressed that this applied only in certain locations.
The presentation included details of how far advanced the scheme in Alderney is, where legislation has been approved, an agreement signed and a commission appointed.
Mr Trought must have thought that he had strayed into a lion’s den with the barrage of questions he faced, but I have to say that, unless the information required was commercially sensitive, his responses were candid and informative.
What he might reflect upon now is that just as the pace of life in Sark tends to be slower than in the other Channel Islands, that might well be matched (in terms of a lack of speed) when it comes to getting Chief Pleas or its representatives to enter into any binding agreements.
That should not necessarily be interpreted too negatively, but merely as evidence that Sark needs to be convinced of the benefits – in terms of a sizeable drop in the cost of power to residents and a slice of the action when the considerable surplus is sold off to communities trying to achieve their ‘green’ quota – before the end of the island’s quill is dipped in the inkwell.
All that said, it was a useful and informative meeting marred only by the insistence of one resident on making a speech rather than asking questions. Indeed, the only amusing part of that contribution was when he used the phrase ‘simple country people’ in relation to understanding expressions such as FTSE 100.
Perhaps if he knew the community in which he lives better he would realise that many Sark residents are extremely well versed in matters relating to companies and their prices on the stock market.
The email address for comment is fallesark@sark.net.
Article posted on 17th April, 2008 - 9.30am
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