Ambulance Yearbook 2019

2019 EMERGENCY SERVICE AND MEDICAL REVIEW

AMBULANCE IRELAND

HELP FROM ON

HIGH

THE WORK OF THE DUBLIN & WICKLOW MOUNTAIN RESCUE TEAM

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UNBOWED

THE AMAZING STORY OF EX-ARMY RANGER BILLY HEDDERMAN

OPERATION BARRACUDA

INTER-AGENCY MAJOR SIMULATED TERROR ATTACK EXERCISE

04/03/2019 13:47

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CONTENTS

03

EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS

DFB’s major emergency capabilities.

EDITOR’S LETTER

04 IRISH NEWS INTERNATIONAL NEWS

08 10

16

06

19 The major inter-agency simulated terror attack exercise.

22

UNBOWED

The Defence Forces had a busy 2018.

The amazing story of exIrish Army Ranger Billy Hedderman’s recovery from quadriplegia.

THE FRONTLINE MO BROS

First responders raising money for the Movember charity.

DFB AMBULANCE CELEBRATES 120 YEARS

Looking back at the first emergency call out.

DEFENCE FORCES ROUND-UP

28

34 36

EMERGENCY SERVICES EXPO

OPERATION BARRACUDA

21

TECHNOLOGY TOOLS

AIR AMBULANCE News on the country’s first community air ambulance.

Emerging technologies and how they are improving the effectiveness of emergency response is set to be the key focus of a convention in the UK later this year.

37

GREEN SHOOTS OF HOPE

Colin White talks to the man hoping to bring medicinal cannabis to Ireland.

TRAVEL Why Oslo is the perfect destination for that city break.

44

MOTORING

Conor Forrest takes a look at the Audi A7 and Ford’s Ranger Raptor.

48 CALIFORNIA’S WILDFIRES The devastating events of last November recalled.

30

HELP FROM ON HIGH

John Kavanagh of the Dublin & Wicklow Mountain Rescue Team talks to Adam Hyland about search and rescue in difficult terrain.

BOOKSHELF

SAFETY 50 ROAD UPDATE 2018 saw record lows in fatal collisions, but more needs to be done.

CONTENTS AMBULANCE IRELAND

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45 MAGAZINE TITLES ▲ 10 EVENTS ▲ 3.6 MILLION REACH

DID YOU KNOW

Ashville Media Group is Ireland’s largest publishing and events company.

You’ve almost certainly read our magazines or attended our events.

Our mission is to connect your brand with the largest audience in Ireland.

(01) 432 2200 ▲ info@ashvillemediagroup.com

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EDITOR’S LETTER

Contributors: Colin White Conor Forrest Creative Director: Jane Matthews Designer: James Moore Cover credit: sosfotos.com Photography: iStock, Flaticon, sosfotos.com, Billy Hedderman, Mercier Press Defence Forces, Adam Hyland Production Executive: Claire Kiernan Publisher: Ashville Media Group Park West Industrial Estate, Dublin 12 Tel: (01) 432 2200; Fax: (01) 676 6043 Managing Director: Gerry Tynan Chairman: Diarmaid Lennon Distribution by: Magazine Mailing Ashville Media Group Unit 55, Park West Road, Park West Dublin 12 Tel: (01) 432 2200 Fax: (01) 676 6043 Publisher’s Statement: The information in Ambulance Ireland is carefully researched and believed to be accurate and authoritative, but the publisher cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions. Statements and opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the Editor or of the publisher.

Copyright ©2019 Ashville Media Group Ltd. No part of this may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher.

letter from the

EDITOR W

elcome to the 2019 edition of Ambulance Ireland. As always, we bring you the latest news and features covering Ireland’s medical and emergency services sectors, as well as interesting and inspiring stories from around the globe.

Although Ireland has thankfully not been the focus of terrorist attacks such as those seen in London, Paris and the US, being prepared for such an event is vital to an effective response should such an event occur. We look at the recent inter-agency terror attack exercise, Operation Barracuda, which brought together the NAS, Dublin Fire Brigade, Gardaí and the Defence Forces in a major operation to assess the country’s response to a mass casualty incident.

It was a pleasure to talk to ex-Army Ranger Billy Hedderman, whose story of overcoming the odds and recovering from paralysis is an inspirational story of determination and hope defeating despair. Billy faced quadriplegia after a freak accident in Australia, but refused to accept his fate and used his army training to focus on making gradual improvements until he amazed doctors by recovering the use of his arms and legs before returning to full-time duty.

The Dublin Wicklow Mountain Rescue Team are also featured, with deputy team leader John Kavanagh giving me a rundown on the vital service this volunteer organisation provides in search and rescue in difficult terrain.

We also look at the great work being done by the Frontline MoBros, a charity group set up by members of the Dublin Fire Brigade, Gardaí and other emergency responders. Their tireless fundraising for the Movember campaign has helped bring huge amounts of money and awareness to the issues of male cancers and mental health.

Elsewhere, we have a round-up of the Defence Force’s activity throughout 2018, we take a look at how road safety is improving nationwide, and review Audi’s second generation A7 and Ford’s Ranger Raptor.

Best wishes,

Adam Hyland

2019 EMERGENCY SERVICE AND MEDICAL REVIEW

AMBULANCE IRELAND

HIGH

HELP FROM ON

Editor: Adam Hyland

THE WORK OF THE DUBLIN & WICKLOW MOUNTAIN RESCUE TEAM

UNBOWED

THE AMAZING STORY OF EX-ARMY RANGER BILLY HEDDERMAN

OPERATION BARRACUDA

INTER-AGENCY MAJOR SIMULATED TERROR ATTACK EXERCISE

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04/03/2019 13:47

AMBULANCE IRELAND

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IRISH NEWS

news

The latest in nationwide health, medical and emergency services news.

EMERGENCY MEDICINES AND BREXIT

MORE HOSPITAL BEDS FAKE MEDICINES SAFEGUARD

Emergency medication coming into the State will be fast-tracked at customs entry points after Brexit thanks to preemptive plans drawn up by the Revenue Commissioners in cooperation with the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical companies have been working to ensure that vital supply chains are not interrupted and there is a continued flow of medicines into the country should the UK crash out of the EU without a deal on March 29th.

About 60% of medicines used in the Republic travel through or are sourced from the UK, with some temperature-controlled with a short lifespan, meaning they require rapid transit through customs clearance points at Irish ports and airports to avoid damage and disruption to supplies. In a December meeting, Revenue told the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association that customs offices each have a “trade facilitation unit” where officers can be contacted about goods moving through ports, saying: “If emergency medicines are being imported to Ireland, the agent/ company making the declaration [should] advise the trade facilitation in advance and if issues are encountered at importation, they would have a contact point to assist in the release of the goods.” Revenue also said it was exploring a number of options under the EU’s customs code “to reduce the risk of medicines being selected for inspection at the point of import” and that it was willing to discuss these with the medicines regulator, the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA), and pharmaceutical companies.

Almost 80 additional beds are to be introduced across the health service by the end of March, Minister for Health Simon Harris has said.

These include a 40-bed modular build at South Tipperary General Hospital and a 30-bedded ward in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda. In addition to the 78 beds due by March, 75 acute beds and 70 community beds are scheduled to come on stream during 2019.

The Health Service Capacity Review 2018 recommended an increase in acute hospitals beds of over 2,600 by 2031 to respond to increasing demand in the future. However, healthcare unions, including the IHCA, have warned this figure will not be enough to meet demand. Last year, an OECD report found Ireland had the fourth lowest number of hospital beds relative to its population.

Safeguards to protect patients from fake medicines have been introduced as part of a new national system established and managed by the Irish Medicines Verification Organisation (IMVO). Throughout Europe, medicine packs will have enhanced tamper-proof measures and will now carry a barcode with a unique serial number so that each pack can be scanned in a pharmacy before handover to a patient.

The scanner connects to a central database of prescription-only medicines manufactured, distributed and supplied for sale in Ireland.

Ireland is now in compliance with the EU Falsified Medicines Directive (FMD), which provides more safeguards and security to ensure Irish patients will continue to have absolute confidence in the medicines they receive from their pharmacy. The initiative has involved the collaboration of over 2,000 pharmacies, hospitals and wholesalers in Ireland who distribute dispense over 95 million prescription medicines every year, as well as the manufacturers who make the products.

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IRISH NEWS

A&E ADMISSIONS STUDY

MENTAL HEALTH NUMBER

There were almost 16,000 physical and verbal assaults on HSE staff in the last three years.

According to information released by the HSE, more than 15,800 such assaults occurred between 2016 and 2018, with the vast majority (12,000) physical in nature. In 2016, there were just over 6,000 assaults on HSE staff, dropping to 5,500 in 2017 and 4,300 last year. A national strategy for the management of aggression and violence, titled Linking Service and Safety: Together Creating Safer Places of Service, was published in 2008 with the intention of standardising practice to ensure violent incidents are managed in the appropriate manner across all healthcare settings, with the HSE planning to place a “renewed emphasis on the management of workrelated aggression and violence in 2019” to support the strategy.

EMERGENCY VEHICLE CRASHES

HSE ASSAULTS

INTERCULTURAL HEALTH STRATEGY

Almost a quarter of all A&E admissions could be avoided in a better-functioning health system, according to a new study. The research, entitled “Drivers of potentially avoidable emergency admissions in Ireland: an ecological analysis” is published in the BMJ Quality and Safety Journal, estimates that 22% of A&E admissions are avoidable, and indicates that some of these unnecessary admissions are driven by deprivation, hospital practices and health insurance concerns.

The study, led by University College Cork’s economics lecturer Brenda Lynch and carried out under the Structured Population and Health Services Research Education programme, found that over the last ten years, emergency admissions in Ireland have increased by almost 1,000 per year, from 32,000 in 2005 to 41,500 in 2016. This accounted for one in four of all hospital admissions.

It said that potentially avoidable admissions include those relating to an undiagnosed or untreated underlying condition. In best case scenarios, the patient could have been treated more appropriately elsewhere, such as in the patient’s home or in a community setting. The study also found that the number of primary care resources available in any one area wasn’t a strong predictor of the number of people seeking admission to A&E, but that factors such as age and deprivation were.

Taking 14 selected conditions, the study found that “it is more likely that those counties with high unemployment will experience high emergency admissions for the 14 selected conditions.”

The Second National Intercultural Health Strategy for the Republic of Ireland has been launched by the HSE. The strategy, which covers the period 2018 to 2023, provides a comprehensive and integrated approach to addressing the many unique health and support needs experienced by the increasing numbers of people from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds who live in Ireland. These service users make up a diverse group in terms of country of origin, economic and social backgrounds, education and work experience, integration and healthcare outcomes. The five main goals outlined are to enhance accessibility of services to people from diverse ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds, address their specific health issues, ensure the provision of high quality, culturally responsive service, build an evidence base, and strengthen partnerships in working to enhance intercultural health.

Ambulances and Garda vehicles were involved in 669 crashes responding to emergencies last year. The HSE recently revealed that there were 152 occasions when ambulances were damaged in collisions or crashes while responding to emergencies across the country in the same period, and that there were 892 accidents in total involving their vehicles.

The numbers were released by the HSE and Dept of Justice in response to a parliamentary question from Sinn Fein’s Louise O’Reilly, with the party’s health spokesperson saying: “I implore people to be more cautious and considerate when emergency services are navigating in traffic.”

Ireland is set to get its own emergency number specifically for mental health emergencies, with each call evaluated by a psychiatric nurse. The new emergency service for people experiencing suicidal thoughts, depression or anxiety is set to be introduced by April of this year. A psychiatric nurse will evaluate each call before rerouting it to the appropriate service, which could be a treatment facility, therapist or talk therapy. The dedicated number will be accompanied by a website where users can describe their issue, location and age, before getting a drop-down menu with the services in the local area most appropriate to the issue. It is hoped the emergency number will become as ubiquitous as the 999 or 112 used to call the gardaí, fire brigade or ambulance service.

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

news

Medical and emergency services news from around the world.

REFUGEE CAMP FIRE SAFETY GUIDELINES FIRE SAFETY FLAWS AT MACKINTOSH BUILDING

Engineering consultancy firm Arup has published new guidelines for mitigating fire safety risks at refugee camps and other informal settlements. The Framework for Fire Safety in Informal Settlements is based on three years of research and aims to help NGOs, aid organisations and governments form a comprehensive approach to fire safety by offering recommendations on how communities can protect themselves. More than a billion people are currently living in refugee camps or other informal settlements that are especially vulnerable to fire and other health and safety risks due to dense populations, poor quality shelter, and limited infrastructure and access for emergency services.

Arup’s fire engineering and international development team interviewed community leaders, fire and rescue services and NGOS to create practical guidance across four stages of the fire disaster cycle. These are mitigation (measures to prevent or reduce the likelihood, severity and consequences of fire), preparedness (strategies, procedures, resources and training), response (actions taken to save lives and protect critical infrastructure), and recovery (aftermath responses).

“Our research highlighted a major gap in fire safety knowledge, experience, assessment tools and construction guidance for these communities and the organisations which support them,” said Danielle Antonellis, fire safety engineer at Arup. This framework is an initial step to closing that gap and building resilience.”

The destruction by fire of the iconic Glasgow School of Art’s Mackintosh building indicates that fire safety planning on the site was “seriously flawed”, an architect has claimed.

Alan Dunlop, professor of architecture at Liverpool University, said accounts offered by the project team appointed by Glasgow School of Art had stressed that a rigorous approach to fire safety had been adopted, despite the fact the building was destroyed in the blaze.The Mackintosh building burnt down in June.

As well as the art school, at the time the area was occupied by a construction firm involved in a major restoration project due to be completed in February 2019, following a previous fire in 2014.The construction work meant firefighters were unable to enter the building over fears the structure was unsafe, with Professor Dunlop drawing attention to the presence of open duct work at the site.

MOTHER’S VOICE BETTER THAN CONVENTIONAL SMOKE ALARM A study published in the Journal of Paediatrics has found that a sleeping child is three times more likely to be woken by a smoke alarm playing a human voice than one with a regular high-pitched tone.

Researchers from the Centre for Injury Research and Policy and the Sleep Disorders Centre at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Ohio, tested three alarms that used the mother’s voice, and traditional smoke alarms, on 176 children aged between five and 12. The

alarms that replayed the mother’s voice woke 8691% of children and prompted 84-86% to “escape”, compared with 53% awakened and 51% “escaped” for the conventional tone alarm. The average time taken for a child to wake and escape upon hearing the highpitched alarm was 282 seconds, while the average times for a child to wake and escape upon hearing an alarm using their mother’s recorded voice ranged from 18 to 28 seconds.

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

FIRE DEPARTMENT MASCOT SUPPORT Facebook page featuring the life-like version of the character, and by the next night had more than 14,000 followers. The idea behind the name is that any member of the public can help in times of danger. Wade Wong Wang-leong, senior divisional officer from the Fire Services Department’s new Community Emergency Preparedness Division, said Anyone was played by staff from his division and that they had deliberately picked someone with a big belly for the role initially.

NEW KIT FOR LONDON CREWS

The Hong Kong Fire Service has seen a huge surge of interest in a popular mascot employed to educate the public on what to do in emergency situations.

Anyone, originally an animated character used in promotional materials, debuted as a human on Monday, November 5, as firefighters donned skintight blue lycra body suits at a press conference to demonstrate lifesaving techniques and fire prevention. On the same day, the department also launched its official

KITCHEN COUNTER EXTINGUISHER The first fire extinguisher designed to fit on a kitchen counter has won a prestigious prize and development grant in Stockholm.Andreas Westberg designed the Firemill, a new kind of fire extinguisher so small it can fit on a kitchen workspace, and

collected the prize of SEK250,000 (€24,000) from the Stockholm Acceleration Scholarship fund.The extinguisher is compact enough to stand conveniently in the kitchen where many fires start, but can also be tested and practised with before a fire breaks out.

As of October 31, all 4,800 of London’s firefighters have a new look as modernised personal protective equipment (PPE) has been rolled out across the Brigade in what is the biggest kit update for eight years.The most notable update is the new gold-coloured fire tunics and leggings, which show up dirt and damage more easily than the previous navy kit, but the new PPE, which is both lighter and more durable, also features new additions which reflect the changing role of the modern firefighter. These include new lightweight gloves that allow more dexterity for use on non-fire related incidents such as road traffic collisions, and helmet torches, which feature in addition to chest torches to increase visibility. “We needed a kit that could support and protect crews in a range of incidents, whether fighting fires, freeing people trapped in crashed cars, or complex rescues from collapsed buildings,” said Tom George, Deputy Commissioner at London Fire Brigade.

“As you would expect, the PPE underwent rigorous testing by firefighters in real fire conditions and other rescue scenarios. This new kit is the gold standard.”

VIRTUAL TOWN TEACHES CHILDREN ABOUT FIRE SAFETY Fire services in Wales have launched an interactive virtual town in which children can learn about fire safety. A collaboration between the North, Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Services and digital studio company Matmi has produced a collection of innovative new educational resources to help young people learn about fire, road and water safety. In the virtual town, Sparkton, children can identify dangerous hazards, watch videos and play

educational games about fire safety, as well as dress a firefighter to learn about their kit. Originally developed by Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service, the interactive games are now available in the Welsh language to teach children across the country about fire safety.

To play the Sparkton game, visit ww.nwales-fireservice.org.uk AMBULANCE IRELAND

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DEFENCE FORCES 2018 ROUNDUP

IN OUR The Irish Defence Forces had another busy year in 2018, according to their end of year report.

O

n the domestic front, the Defence Forces were deployed on a range of defence and security operations in Ireland, supporting An Garda Síochána, the HSE, Local Authorities and other key agencies in the State.

These included the Army conducting almost 200 Aid to the Civil Power Operations in support of the Gardaí, involving explosive ordnance disposal call outs and escorts of prisoners, explosives and major cash amounts. They also continued to provide a permanent armed guard at Portlaoise Prison, the Central Bank and Irish Industrial Explosives.

More than 1,220 personnel, including Engineer Specialist Search Teams, were deployed to assist in various searches on the request of An Garda Síochána, while 2,861 personnel were deployed to assist civil authorities during operations.

Official State visits and the Papal visit in August also saw 3,364 defence Force personnel deployed.

Offshore, the Naval Service conducted maritime defence and security operations within a patrol area of 220 million acres

DEFENCE of sea – more than 12 times the land mass of Ireland – representing 15% of Europe’s fisheries. This was supported by the Air Corps, who compliment the Naval Service’s patrols through more than 160 Maritime Patrol Squadron aerial surveillance flights.

The fleet also conducted approximately 740 boarding operations and detained seven vessels for alleged infringements of fishing regulations. Other notable operations included a multinational counter-narcotics surveillance operation and a separate Joint Task Force counternarcotics interdiction operation.

A ninth ship joined the fleet in October, with a formal naming and commissioning ceremony for the LÉ George Bernard Shaw to be held this year.

The Naval Service Diving Section were also deployed for 21 operations, including five separate search and recovery operations.

The Air Corps completed more than 310 Emergency Aeromedical Support Services missions supporting the HSE in providing a medical service for seriously ill patients in rural communities, and

provided 44 inter-hospital Air Ambulance services to respond to time-critical medical emergencies. It also continued to support the Garda Air Support unit.

INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS Having the longest unbroken record of overseas service with the UN of any country in the world since first deploying in 1958, the Irish Defence Forces continued to be heavily involved in international operations in 2018.

There were 1,690 personnel deployed on UN-mandated Peace Support Operations in 14 countries around the world, with 650 personnel currently serving. The largest deployment is to South Lebanon with UNIFIL, where 462 personnel are deployed to create a safe and secure environment. There were also 138 personnel deployed as a Disengagement Observer Force in the Golan Heights.

The LÉ Samuel Beckett and the LÉ James Joyce deployed to the Mediterranean under EU NAVFOR MED Operation Sophia as part of the

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DEFENCE FORCES 2018 ROUNDUP

All images courtesy of the Irish Defence Forces.

EU’s maritime mission to disrupt human smuggling and trafficking in the area.

A Defence Forces Improvised Explosive Device (IED) Mobile Training Team also travelled to Burkina Faso in November to commence training support to the UN Mine Action Service, and will redeploy again this year.

TRAINING AND EDUCATION The recruitment and development of personnel continued steadily in 2018, with 492 recruits and 89 cadets inducted to the Defence Forces to begin military training.

Some 210 Defence Forces personnel completed degree courses, while six completed Masters degrees through Continuous Professional Development programmes. There were also 1,110 Skill Courses conducted, with 14,344 student days developing and maintaining capabilities, while 778 personnel underwent 27 career courses, developing leadership, planning and decisionmaking skills.

On top of this, 1,700 personnel underwent overseas pre-deployment

mission readiness training, ranging from counter-IED to medical first-responder training to radio and communication skills to armour vehicle driving.

Operation Barracuda, a major terrorism and mass casualty simulation exercise, was also performed in conjunction with An Garda Síochána, the National Ambulance Service and the Dublin Fire Brigade.

CEREMONIAL REPRESENTATION The Defence Forces participated in more than 50 significant military and State ceremonial events in 2018. The Bands of the Defence Forces played at 420 events, across military, sporting and community events throughout Ireland.

The annual State commemoration ceremonies, including the 102nd anniversary of the Easter Rising at the GPO and the National Famine Commemoration held in Cork, were supported by the Defence Forces, who also played a significant role in the inauguration ceremony of President Higgins.

State ceremonial honours were afforded for visits from the Italian President in February, Pope Francis in August, and to President Higgins on his departure to Latvia and Lithuania in June, while the Defence Forces also took part in monthly ceremonies at Áras an Uachtaráin where a total of 38 Ambassadors presented their credentials of office to the President.

The Defence Forces also provided Military Honours at the State receptions hosted by An Taoiseach to mark the visits to Ireland by the President of the European Commission and the Chancellor of Austria.

A special State ceremony was held at Dublin Castle in June to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Ireland’s first contribution to United Nations Peacekeeping operations, and the continuous participation of members of the Defence Forces on operations since then. As part of these commemorations, members of the Defence Forces took part in a wreath laying ceremony at United Nations Headquarters in New York in July, attended by An Taoiseach.

A series of summer ceremonies at the National Memorial, Merrion Square, were held to remember those members of the Defence Forces who have given their lives in the service of the State.

Defence Forces Veterans Day was held at the National Museum of Ireland, Dublin, in May. State commemorations, in which the Defence Forces played a key role, were held to mark the centenary of significant events from World War 1.

The centenary of the sinking of the RMS Leinster was marked by a State commemoration held in Dún Laoghaire in October. The centenary of the end of World War 1 was also marked with a State ceremony at Glasnevin Cemetery on November 11.

It was a busy year, but with redeployments, continuous training and a number of high-profile ceremonies to come, 2019 will be just as busy for the Defence Forces.

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MOVEMBER

Mo Bros unite: (From left) F/F Terry Crosbie, Garda Superintendent Sé McCormack, S/O Kevin Sheehan, Barber Sam Donnelly (Sam’s Barbers), F/F Jonathon Forbes, F/F Ken Devine, F/F Ger Corcoran.

CHANGING THE FACE OF MEN’S HEALTH The Frontline Mo Bros are fighting to make a difference for male cancers, mental health issues and suicide prevention.

T

here were many things that caught the eye at the annual Open Day at Phibsboro Fire Station on 25 November.

Apart from the displays and exhibits from all of the emergency services, one of those things was the amount of frontline men sporting impressive moustaches.

The reason was of course Movember, the charity aiming to raise funds for and awareness of men’s health, particularly prostate and testicular cancer, mental health and suicide prevention, and the day itself was the

“big finale” of the fundraising year, as C Watch’s Jonathan Forbes told me.

There are currently 71 members of what is known as the Frontline Mo Bros, a group consisting of firefighters, paramedics, Gardaí, Army and Civil Defence, with six of the Phibsboro crew, including Jonathan, Ger Corcoran, Daniel Simpson, Terry Crosbie, Kevin Sheehan and Ken Devine risking ridicule to grow out an eye-catching moustache over the course of the month.

Jonathan has been involved with the Movember cause for many years, and

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MOVEMBER

with a couple of other crew members it was he who first got the DFB involved.

“I’ve been working with Movember for nine or ten years at this stage,” he tells me. “When it came into Ireland it was sort of seen as the bad boy of charity groups, because it didn’t really go along with the norms of what a charity should be. Traditional charities all seemed very wholesome, but this was all about growing a moustache, going against the norm, and it raised conversations amongst groups of men.

It was something that interested me. I read an article about it and it resonated with me, because like almost everyone, I have had family members who had cancer and I felt it was something I’d like to get involved with. There weren’t that many charities out there that spoke directly to men about men’s health,” he says.

Over the course of a few years the Movember project got bigger across Europe and in Ireland, and eventually Jonathan thought the DFB could do something officially about it. He went to the Chief, who gave his blessing, so he created the Dublin Fire Brigade Movember team.

For a few years, individual teams from the emergency services shared a close rivalry, always seeing who could raise the most cash, until on a night out with other groups, the idea was raised of uniting each into a single fundraising team called the Frontline Mo Bros.

“We decided to use the expertise and experience in fundraising that we had individually gained as single groups to try to generate as much cash as possible,” Jonathan says. “That’s how it was born, and the first year we tried it, we made €21,000. The second year we raised €23,000 and over the last few years it has been gradually increasing.”

Several people got on board from the very start, including firefighters Ger Corcoran, Keith Wilson and Ken Devine, as well as Sé McCormack and Peter Hayde from An Garda Síochána, and Sam Donnelly from Sam’s Barbers, who has supported the team from the very start. Together they have been involved every year without fail and

Superintendent Sé McCormack from An Garda Síochána.

Ger Corcoran.

Daniel Simpson.

have helped in the organising of each and every event the DFB has taken part in for Movember.

November 2015 was when things really kicked off. Jonathan recalls: “I got a phonecall from one of the managers of Movember Ireland, basically telling me to expect a call from Australia, and then one of the founding members of Movember rang me and told me that the founding members had voted me International Man of Movember. There have only ever been ten people who got that award.

“The next year, the Frontline Mo Bros group were voted International Team of Movember - an award that has never been given to any other group - in recognition of the amount of awareness we created, bringing together so many different entities and agencies. That in itself is an accomplishment.

“So, we have within our group the two biggest awards you can get from the Movember organisation, and that is a credit to all the lads involved, and what they do.”

Civil Defence 2nd Officer Philip Dunne and volunteer Fionn Condran.

One reason why the Frontline Mo Bros group has seen such success is that the fight against cancer and mental health issues is prevalent, given the nature of the job.

“Movember is not only about fighting cancer, but also about men’s mental health, and we are seeing that suicide rates across all areas is on the increase,” Jonathan tells me. “The likes of ourselves, the Gardaí, the Army, it’s prevalent – any of the services that have to deal with day to day tragedies.

There is a big emphasis on the fact that everybody knows somebody who has died from or suffered from cancer or mental health issues at some stage.

“In the fire service alone, the risk of cancer that has been there should be enough in itself for people to get involved,” Jonathan adds. “There are too many lads who have retired on medical grounds over the years because they have picked up a cancer, and too

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many lads who have retired but had that retirement cut short and passed away from cancer. It’s an occupational hazard, and you can never fully negate that danger. So, if we can help the fight against cancer in any way, or at least be able to make it easier for these cancers to be screened and identified early, that in itself is enough.”

The same goes for raising awareness of mental health issues.

“That whole bravado of being a big macho firefighter, of thinking that you have seen it all and nothing affects you, to think like that is to walk down a very dangerous path. No matter who you are, you are always going to get that one call that will resonate with you, will go over and over in your mind, cause flashbacks, and it is important to know that it is ok to talk. Movember is one of the charities that advocates that – that you have to talk it out, you have to have those conversations. If you are not feeling alright, talk to your friends, your peers, your family.”

Growing a moustache is relatively easy, but the fundraising aspect means some members can’t take part every year. “We don’t want to oversaturate friends and family members with requests for donations, especially given the time of year coming up to Christmas,” Jonathan says, but when frontline staff do take part, they find it very worthwhile, not only because of the money and awareness they raise, but because of the special camaraderie that comes with the effort.

“The community feel of it is a big thing,” Jonathan agrees. “Once you join up, you are a MoBro, part of a family-run event. When you see someone walking down the street with a moustache during the month of November, you know you are both part of the same family, the same group.

“There’s a lot of brutal-looking moustaches out there during the month, but that is part and parcel of it. It’s about people making the effort, willing to have the piss ripped out of them, all for a good cause. It’s a case of if you don’t get slagged for your moustache, there’s something wrong,

Frontline Mo Bros Captain Jonathan Forbes.

if it looks too good on you. That’s why a lot of the lads go for a bigger moustache, handlebars, etc, to do something outside of the norm, in order to raise the conversation.

“If someone comments on your moustache and asks you why you are doing it, you can explain what it is for, and people learn to realise why you are doing it, and that raises awareness and also brings in donations.”

There are too many members of the Frontline Mo Bros spread across the country and different agencies that having everybody meet up is almost impossible, but every member does receive a prize pack at the end of the month, so everybody gets something for taking part, as a thank you.

“What it’s all about at the end of the day, though,” Jonathan says, “is raising money for this great cause.”

Apart from the Open Day, fundraising efforts this year included a car wash at Phibsboro station, and with online donations added, the group has managed to raise €34,000 for the charity by the end of the campaign.

Over the years the DFB members of the Frontline Mo Bros have always tried to come up with something different when it comes to fundraising.

“The target grows every year, and trying to keep up the momentum is one of the most difficult things,” Jonathan says. “Some charities can run their course and people get bored of doing it

or donating to it, but that is why we try to do something different every year.”

Last year, for instance, they set up a turntable ladder on Henry Street and together climbed the equivalent of going up Everest. “Unfortunately for us, it was right in the middle of Storm Ophelia,” Jonathan recalls, “so not only did we climb the equivalent of Everest, we got the same weather conditions as well. That was a wet and stormy day, but it was a great day because donations came up to about €5,000.”

This year’s car wash brought in €1,500 within a couple of hours, and the “big push” of the Open Day raised €5,000 over four hours. “At the Open Day there is something for everybody and everyone has a really good time,” Jonathan says. “It’s a big draw for children and their families.

The fundraising showed that. We are on target to match previous years.

To raise so much on that day alone, over just four hours, is colossal, and a credit to all involved, not just from Phibsboro but from across all agencies who joined in and helped out on this day and all others across the year.”

Next up for the Frontline Mo Bros is a well-deserved shave, before planning begins for 2019’s campaign.

Find out more here https://ie.movember.com/ team/2234417

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Fairfield Nursing Home

Quarry Road, Drimoleague, Co. Cork Tel: 028 31881 Fax: 028 31882 Email: fairfielddrimoleague@eircom.net Fairfield Nursing Home is a single storey purpose built facility offering the most modern of conveniences and comforts. Accommodations include single rooms en-suite and double rooms en-suite. All bedrooms have individually controlled central heating, over bed light, TV point and telephone point. Some bedrooms and their bathrooms are designed for wheelchair access.

Residents are assured of safety and security with a Nurse Call system installed at each bedside, bathroom and reception room.

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Old Airport Road, Cloghran, Co. Dublin Tel: 01 842 8855 annesleywilliams.ie ANNESLEY WILLIAMS SUPPORTING THE WORK OF AMBULANCE IRELAND

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Cuan Mhuire is Ireland’s largest multi-site provider of Detoxification & Treatment for Alcohol, Drug & Gambling Addiction.

Cuan Mhuire has CHKS Accreditation & ISO 9001-2008 Certification It has Residential Treatment Centres at: Athy, Co. Kildare T: 059 8631493 E: athy@cuanmhuire.ie

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CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES

WIDESPREAD DEVASTATION IN CALIFORNIA Firefighters in the US state faced unprecedented wildfire activity last year.

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ovember saw unprecedented wildfire activity in California as three major fires swept across the state, with firefighters facing a prolonged battle to contain them.

A total of 88 people died in the Camp, Woolsey and Hill fires, with a quarter of a million forced to flee their homes, 11 still missing, and damage estimated at more than $2.975 billion.

Although wildfires are common in California, a combination of rising temperatures, low humidity, drought and strong winds meant November’s fires spread quickly and left emergency services overwhelmed.

The Camp Fire in the north of the state began on 8 November and

within days had claimed the lives of 31 people, with 200 more reported missing, making it the deadliest on record in California, but the wildfire would continue to spread for several weeks, causing untold damage.

The town of Paradise bore the brunt of the inferno, with almost 7,000 homes destroyed, at least 90 of them belonging to firefighters and other emergency responders.

More than 5,590 firefighters were assigned to the blaze, including 622

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CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES

fire engines, 75 water tenders, 24 helicopters, 101 hand crews and 103 bulldozers. Firefighters from as far as the states of Washington and Texas joined in to help, while an additional 100 National Guard troops assisted in looking for human remains. CAL FIRE said that the strain on resources had been enormous since so much of the state was under siege by flames and wind.

The entire city of Malibu was ordered to evacuate as the Woolsey Fire roared toward the beachside community. The Camp Fire death toll, meanwhile, continued to climb as 100km/hr winds fanned the flames.

By 14 November, the death toll had reached 50, with firefighters attempting to tackle a fire that was still only 35% contained.

The sheer magnitude of the fires meant there was inevitable confusion regarding the number of people unaccounted for, jumping from 200 to 631 in one day as investigators reviewed emergency calls made when the Camp Fire erupted. Days later, that figure stood at 1,276.

The Woolsey Fire was 91% contained by mid-November, after burning 96,949 acres and killing three people, but the death toll in the Camp Fire increased further.

Towards the third week of November, much-needed rain helped firefighters battle the blaze, but authorities estimated it would take two more weeks to fully contain the Camp Fire, which was growing at a rate of 1,000 acres per day.

That rain, however, complicated the efforts of dozens of teams sifting through ash and debris, looking for human remains. The severity of the fire was so great that authorities had to call in a DNA lab and teams of anthropologists to help identify victims.

The Hill Fire that destroyed 4,500 acres west of Los Angeles was declared fully contained by 19 November, with the Woolsey Fire 69% contained, but the death toll increased to 79 in the Camp Fire, then 83 by 22 November. The list of those believed to be unaccounted for, meanwhile, dropped by several hundred.

Progress was made in the next few days as by 23 November, The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said the 153,336acre fire was 95% contained.

Despite the inclement weather, more than 800 volunteers searched for remains on Thanksgiving Day, with more than 500 people still unaccounted for and the death toll rising to 84.

By 2 December, the Camp Fire was fully contained, but had killed 88 people. Following campaigns urging affected families to contact relatives and friends, the number of those missing dropped significantly to 11.

Five firefighters had suffered injuries, and overall the firefighting effort had cost $432 million.

Containing such an enormous wildfire was a monumental effort, during which firefighters showed immense bravery and dedication to duty, but the overwhelming fear amongst authorities is that due to climate change, such devastating fires are becoming, as California’s governor Jerry Brown said, “not the new normal... but the new abnormal”.

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MAJOR EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS

PREPARED FOR A MAJOR EMERGENCY In the event of a major emergency, Dublin Fire Brigade can deploy a number of shelters and pods in order to specifically deal with the situation.

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t the site of a major emergency, the priority of rescue workers is, of course, to save lives and prevent further injuries. They must rescue those who are trapped or in danger, triage casualties, provide them with appropriate treatment, and transport them to hospital where necessary. Naturally, however, emergency situations can spring up without warning, leaving the emergency services with little time within which to act, and so their response must be swift.

The Major Emergency Management response is an agreed framework approved by Government which enables An Garda Siochána, the Health Service Executive and Local Authorities to prepare for and make a co-ordinated response to major emergencies resulting from events such as fires, transport accidents, hazardous substances incidents and severe weather. Under this framework, there are a number of pods containing specialised equipment and various inter-connectable blow-up shelters or tents which can be deployed in the event of an emergency situation.

Each of these pods has a different core function, as Greg O’Dwyer, Acting Assistant Chief Fire Officer, explains.

“There’s a mass casualty tent shelter, there’s a mass fatality one, and there’s also a hazmat – hazardous materials – decontamination one,” he says. “They’re all linked to Major Emergency Management.”

These units are all housed in pods or containers which are transported by a prime mover vehicle, which is a roll-on/roll-off system of delivery. This essentially eliminates the need for a fleet of vehicles with which to transport the pods, which would be a waste of resources, given the infrequency of their use. Rather, the one prime mover vehicle and a spare can pick up the required pod and deliver it to the scene and crew who will manage its deployment.

“Physically, the shelters will come on a pod – these big prime mover trucks that can drop what looks like a container onto the ground,” explains ACFO O’Dwyer. “It has a big hook, and it rolls it off the back like a big roll-on/ roll-off skip. They can be dropped anywhere, so rather than having all these different trucks, which have to be serviced and kept driven and all the rest of it, we have one truck and a spare and all of these different types of pods for various types of incidents. And on the pods you have these big, huge inflatable shelters.”

All of these pod units are based out of different station locations, giving ownership and expert familiarisation with the systems to the operational crews who will be responsible for their deployment at an incident. The units involved in the Major Emergency

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MAJOR EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS

Preparedness Process are the Major Emergency Unit, On-Site Coordination Centre, Hazardous Materials Unit Phase 1, Hazardous Materials Decontamination Unit Phase 2, Mass Casualty Unit, and Mass Fatality Unit.

DIFFERENT FUNCTIONS The three types of pod and shelters – the mass casualty, mass fatality and hazmat shelters – are deployed specifically based upon the nature of the emergency at hand. For example, in the event of a hazardous material emergency, it is necessary to protect members of the public threatened by the event by moving them temporarily to a safe area and decontaminating them if necessary.

Where emergency decontamination of the public is required, the fire service may use its fire-fighter decontamination facilities, or improvised equipment may be used prior to the arrival of dedicated equipment.

“The mass decontamination pod does various things,” explains ACFO

O’Dwyer. “There are three or four different tents associated with that for bringing people out of a dirty area, for taking off their clothes and hosing them all down, getting them dry and getting them into boiler suits and getting them out the other side to the hospital. This is before we bring somebody to hospital.”

The mass casualty pod allows for the assessment and treatment of patients until they can either be discharged or transported to a hospital. Permanent buildings are naturally preferred to tents and shelters, as they provide power, and running water, but these mobile shelters can be deployed anywhere and can be set up quickly using the personnel and resources on-hand.

The mass fatality shelter is available in the event of mass fatalities overwhelming public mortuaries.

Refrigeration is required to facilitate the storage of remains, as post-mortem examination, identification and the gathering of forensic evidence can take some time. It would be used before

transferring fatalities to a permanent morgue, or when the deceased must be removed to access injured victims, or to keep the deceased out of public sight in order to prevent heightening distress or panic in an already emotionallycharged scene.

“The mass fatality pod is essentially a mobile morgue, and there’s a refrigeration unit on there,” explains ACFO O’Dwyer. “That would be set up on the instruction of a coroner.

Thankfully, it’ something that rarely happens. It hasn’t been used yet – only in exercises.”

Major emergencies are naturally rare events, but they can occur with little or no warning, and so Dublin Fire Brigade and all of the emergency services must be prepared to act. The level of mobilisation is dependent on the nature of the incident, and its scale and duration, but the emergency pods are a necessary aspect to a response which, ultimately, aims to protect as many people as possible.

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Donore Nursing Home Welcome to those in need Bro. Kevin would like to thank those who have donated to the Capuchin Day Centre, enabling us to provide 850 meals a day and 1,700 food parcels a week for the people who attend the centre. We have a doctor’s clinic, dental clinic and chiropodist on-site and showers are provided every day.

Please send a donation, no matter how small to:

Bro. Kevin Crowley ofm cap.

Capuchin Day Centre, 29, Bow Street, Dublin 7.

Telephone: 01-8720770

or donate online

Sidmonton Road Bray Co. Wicklow

Phone: 01 2867348 Eastern health board registered Long or short term 24 hour professional nursing care

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OPERATION BARRACUDA

EMERGENCY SERVICES TAKE PART IN TERROR EXERCISE The NAS and DFB worked together in a simulated terror attack training exercise in November.

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he inter-agency training exercise, Operation Barracuda, was led by An Garda Siochána and involved specialist response units, the Defence Forces, the National Ambulance Service, as well as recruits from the Dublin Fire Brigade. It was designed to test the capabilities of first responders in the event of a mass casualty incident or terror attack, with the focus on saving saveable lives.

The assailants and victims were played by 50 recruits from the Garda college at Templemore.

In the real-time tiered response, the simulated operation began when the Garda control centre received a 999 call at 7pm reporting a road traffic collision at DCU campus.

Local Garda units responded first, and quickly determined that mass casualties were involved.

Crews were mobilised from the OBI to attend, but within minutes it was elevated to a major emergency when a number of “assailants” primed their car with explosives before getting out and stabbing and shooting people on the campus. A second call for ERCC

Communications and Mass Casualty Units was then made.

As gunfire erupted, the DFB and NAS crews were tasked with the rapid extrication of further casualties, and to take cover in safe areas.

Blanchardstown Station Officer Mark Fay is also a recruit course trainer at the OBI. He was Initial Incident Commander at Operation

Barracuda, tasked with the role of liaising with the other agencies and coordinating the emergency response from the DFB. For him, the way the operation played out was realistic, and a useful training exercise for the DFB recruits.

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“When we arrived, we were told that there were still active shooters in the area, so we were prevented from going further into the campus by the Armed Response Unit and Garda officers, which is realistically what would happen. For us it’s about working in a safe area. We wouldn’t be sending a crew into an area that wasn’t cleared.

“Some of the lads found it hard that we had to hold back,” he added, “but to make it as realistic as possible, we had to wait for the other agencies to make the area safe for us to do our job.”

The recruits were given no advance warning of what they could expect from the exercise, but Mark was happy with how they handled it. “They did very well,” he said. “It was a bit daunting for some of them because it was the first time they had to work with another agency, but they triaged every casualty.

“It was a good incident for the recruits to see what they could expect,” he added. “From what we saw, and regarding our role in it, it was a success.”

As the exercise continued, one of the assailants was shot dead before the two remaining terrorists retreated into

a building and shot more casualties, taking a number of hostages.

The Garda Armed Support Unit moved in, while a joint DFB/NAS team of paramedics established a Casualty Triage and Clearing Station in an adjacent building, where they could remove and treat casualties it was possible to save.

As fire erupted in the main building, armed gardaí stormed the area, shot the assailants and retrieved the hostages, before DFB firefighters were allowed to enter to extinguish the fire and remove casualties to paramedics.

As members of the Defence Forces Explosives Ordnance Disposal unit dealt with the booby-trapped car, DFB and NAS paramedics continued to triage, load and transport the “wounded” to hospital, and after an hour, the exercise was wound down.

Although performed in real time, each agency had prepared for the training exercise individually, starting with desktop scenarios and building gradually to the operation itself.

Greg O’Dwyer, Senior Fire and Emergency Management Officer, was involved with the operation from the start and acted as the DFB’s lead in its planning and preparation.

“We started planning in February, and had a workshop that included a full scenario briefing,” he said. “After that we had monthly, then bi-monthly planning meetings and in the run up to the operation we had weekly meetings

to go over what was going to happen.

In September, we had a tabletop exercise that went through the full inter-agency involvement, before it became a reality in November.”

On the night itself, he and the Chief Fire Officer Dennis Keeley acted as narrators for VIPs and media present to witness the events unfold via security cameras and the various comms, and he was keen to see how inter-agency cooperation would work.

“There were two key purposes behind the operation,” he said.

The first is to test inter-agency communication and coordination.

How we take the 999/112 call details and how we share that information with each other, ensuring that responding crews have the best information possible. Then ensuring that any further information coming from the first responders at the scene, is also shared to all responding agencies.

“The second is to test each of the agencies’ individual preparedness for such an event, their procedures for dealing with it and the coordinated incident command system, ensuring a safe and efficient response and scene management.”

Greg also thought the exercise went very well.

“The real takeaway for the DFB was how well we worked together with the HSE’s National Ambulance Service. Obviously, we needed a lot of coordination and on the ground organisation between the two agencies,” he said. “In a mass casualty incident, your training is important, but so too is coordination in trying to get through all the casualties, and bring them to safe locations for treatment. If such an incident was to happen today, after that exercise I would be very confident we would work very well to get the best possible outcome.

“Of course, we could have more personnel on hand, but with what we had on the night, and what we have to work with, I think we are very well-prepared.”

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DFB AMBULANCE 120TH ANNIVERSARY

DFB AMBULANCE CELEBRATES 120 YEARS OF SERVICE The city’s ambulance service has grown immeasurably, but its future remains in doubt.

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he Dublin Fire Brigade Ambulance Service marked its 120th year in operation on January 5.

Having been established in 1898, the service was called into action for the first time on January 5, 1899, when the ambulance responded to an accident on a trawler, The Curlew, which was fishing off the Rockabill Lighthouse, roughly 5km north east of Skerries in north Co Dublin.

The trawler’s net got snagged underwater, causing the line to snap, resulting in two injuries to the vessel’s crew. One of them, Thomas Smyth, was severely injured.

Having docked at Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, the boat was met by the DFB ambulance and its crew, a horse-drawn vehicle designed by Chief Fire Officer Captain Thomas Purcell, based on similar emergency vehicles in service in Chicago.

Firefighters Joe Kiernan, Tom Dunphy and William O’Brien treated the patients at the scene, before Smyth was transferred to Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital on Grand Canal Street.

Joe Kiernan’s great-grandson and great-great grandson have continued the family’s strong DFB heritage, with one Station Officer at North Strand and the other recently started in the retained fire service in Skerries.

The service was to officially launch five days later on January 10, but was called into action early. In its first year

of operation, the service responded to 537 calls.

A plaque can be seen at the location where the patient was picked up, just outside The Ferryman pub in the IFSC, placed in 2001 by Micheal Martin, TD, then Lord Mayor of Dublin Maurice Ahearn and members of Dublin City Council.

The DFB ambulance service has come a long way since that first call out 120 years ago, and now provides 35% of all responses to emergency ambulance calls nationally. The DFB itself now operates with life-saving equipment and more than 800 trained firefighter paramedics 365 days a year.

Despite this, the service has been in danger in the last few years, with the HSE aiming to take ambulance duties away from the DFB and merge

them within the National Ambulance Service, a move opposed by many in Government, who with trade unions have consistently called for the safeguarding of its future.

At an event marking the 120th anniversary, SIPTU members again called for the retention of the ambulance service of the DFB. SIPTU DFB Section Chair, Deirdre Taylor, said: “Over the past 120 years the DFB ambulance service has developed into an internationally renowned firebased Emergency Medical Service.

A survey of customers response to the service found that it had a 98% satisfaction rating, this is despite its chronic under-resourcing and a lack of investment.

“The DFB Emergency Medical Service responds to 35% of all emergency ambulance calls in Ireland on an annual budget of approximately €9 million, which is 7% of the national ambulance budget.”

She added: “Unfortunately, on the 120th Anniversary of the commencement of the service, we find ourselves in a struggle to maintain it.

Thankfully, our members in Dublin Fire Brigade have received great public and political support to protect this excellent public service.

“That continued support will be needed in 2019 to ensure that future generations of Dubliners will be able to rely on the DFB Emergency Medical Service in their time of need.”

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BILLY HEDDERMAN

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Billy’s amazing story is told in his book Unbowed.

THE MASTER OF HIS FATE Paralysed from the neck down after a surfing accident, Army Officer Billy Hedderman refused to give up. He talks to Adam Hyland about the determination that led to his miraculous recovery.

s New Year’s Eves go, 2014 definitely didn’t go to plan for Billy Hedderman. The former Defence Forces lieutenant and Irish Army Ranger was only three months into his new life in Australia, where he had transferred his position as Captain to an infantry unit in Brisbane, when his whole world was turned upside down, quite literally.

Deciding to make the most of the glorious weather, on December 31, Billy and his wife Rita had driven up the coast to the beach at Caloundra for a day of relaxation before meeting friends for dinner that evening. He had been in and out of the water bodyboarding all day, and decided to have one last go before they headed home. Unfortunately, the last wave he would catch proved to be far more powerful than he had planned, twisting his body awkwardly before slamming him head first into a solid sand bank.

“I felt a strong and hard thud as I hit the top of my head off the sand, while my torso was being pushed forward over my head,” Billy recalls. “My body was caught in something like a very ungraceful and powerful forward roll with a sharp neck inversion.”

Dazed from the collision, it took Billy some time to realise that he was more seriously injured than he thought, as the waves continued to roll over him. “Although my mind was hazy, I knew I needed to stand. When nothing happened, I didn’t panic straight away. I thought I would just shake it off within a few seconds and stand up, but I was beginning to get confused as to why I wasn’t standing up. My chest began to remind me that I was underwater. It started sucking in and out. I began panicking.

I was drowning.”

Fortunately, another bodyboarder had found Billy and dragged him out of the water, before other people ran over to help. It was also fortunate that among them were a former emergency nurse and a student of sports medicine who ensured optimum cervical spine control. Their knowledge of the

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BILLY HEDDERMAN

Maritime counter-terrorism duties in 2011.

Foot patrol in Chad, Christmas Day, 2008.

potential risks of incorrect handling ensured Billy’s injuries were not made worse than they already were.

He didn’t know it yet, but Billy had broken his back, and had no feeling below his neck, apart from in one toe and one thumb. “The idea of being paralysed hadn’t even crossed my mind,” Billy says, “I thought it may be some sort of ‘stinger’ that I would shake off after a little while,” but as paramedics arrived and loaded him into an ambulance, he began to realise the seriousness of the situation.

Following initial treatment at a local hospital, where Billy was told he had badly damaged his spinal cord and was paralysed, he was flown by helicopter to an intensive care unit in Brisbane, but not before he wished his wife a Happy New Year.

It was early on New Year’s Day when doctors first discussed the situation properly with Billy. He was told that he had tetraplegia due to spinal cord damage and was paralysed from the neck down, but the fact that he had the

slightest of movement in his toe and thumb meant his spinal cord injury was incomplete. His first question was obviously whether he would ever walk again. The doctor replied with: “I dunno… maybe.”

“That’s all I needed to hear. It wasn’t a ‘No’,” Billy says. “From that moment on, I knew I had a job to do. From then on, there was hope.”

That job would prove to be “the biggest challenge of my life” as Billy tells me, involving excruciating pain and intensive rehabilitation that saw him go from complete paralysis to miraculous recovery in just seven months.

Billy puts his refusal to give up and his determination to make it through to a full recovery down to his military training with the Irish Defence Forces and ARW, as well as a little luck and the inspiration of his friends.

THE SOLDIER Despite having little interest in the military when he was growing up in Cork, he became interested in the

thought of an Army Cadetship when his career advisor at school mentioned it to him.

“I liked the idea of staying fit, not being office-based, and getting paid to play with real army things,” he says.

“I also liked the idea of being able to do a university degree while being in the Army.”

The decision to join would take him on a gradual rise through the ranks, during which he served in a range of locations and on many different operations.

He joined on October 1, 2001, as an Officer Cadet and did his initial training at the Curragh Camp in Kildare. He completed his cadetship in 2003 when he was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant to the 3rd Infantry Battalion in Kilkenny, where he remained until 2009, having been promoted to Lieutenant in 2005.

True to his plans, during this time he also completed his degree in PE at the University of Limerick. “I attended Uni during the college semesters, then went back to Kilkenny for the summer and all other breaks,” he says, but he also underwent a number of qualification courses, including officer courses, parachuting and reconnaissance, and most notably, the selection process for the Army Ranger Wing (ARW) in 2004, which would later help him

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BILLY HEDDERMAN overcome the serious injuries he suffered in Australia.

When he applied for the ARW, Billy was a 20-year-old second lieutenant, and as he puts it, “as green as St Patrick’s Day”, and though many of his colleagues felt he had no chance of selection, he proved them wrong. He passed the gruelling selection process, learning a lot along the way.

“I learned about mental toughness during the selection process, and I learned a lot about different types of leadership and management while in the unit,” he says. “But I also learned to be clear in thought during times of high duress.”

Billy was deployed to Chad as a Platoon Commander with the Kilkenny Infantry Battalion from October 2008 to February 2009, which he describes as “fantastic exposure for a young leader, and a terrific learning curve,” as he became responsible for 30 soldiers while providing a secure environment for the local civilians.

Upon his return, he was posted to the 4th Infantry Battalion in Cork, before, finally in 2010, being called up to serve with the ARW. Even though he was recovering from a broken leg at the time, he assured the CO he was fit, and successfully underwent more gruelling qualification processes.

During his time in the ARW, Billy served as a tactical commander for three years, and was promoted to Captain in late-2010.

He was earmarked to take over the Special Operations Task Unit Land/Air, or the “para” sub-unit, and underwent a series of courses, including more parachuting, while still taking care of command admin.

Special Forces, as Billy defines them, are “simply able to do things the rest of the Defence Forces can’t” and he was involved in this time in a number of operations.

“We did everything from Domestic counter terrorism and Maritime counter terrorism duties, to Freefall training, survival and mountaineering training,” he tells me. “I was the Quick Reaction Force Commander for the Queen’s visit to Ireland, and was

Billy during advanced mountaineering training in the Swiss Alps.

also in charge of running a selection course for entry into the unit, and was involved in international exchanges, and probably a bit more!”

From his first operation, Billy learned the mantra of KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid, as he grew accustomed to the role of pulling the strings and letting the team get on with their jobs.

He returned to the Irish Army to command on a deployment in Bosnia in 2013, before being posted to the 1st Brigade Training Centre in April 2014, then the 12th Infantry Battalion in Limerick. With new priorities in his life, and as he and his wife Rita, a schoolteacher, felt the pinch of recession-led moratoriums on promotion, Billy started to look into other career paths, and applied to join the Australian Defence Forces (ADF).

AUSTRALIA “It wasn’t a deliberate decision to choose Australia,” Billy tells me.

“A buddy in the ARW mentioned that the Australian Defence Forces were recruiting transfers from other Armies. I looked into it and it just so happened that they were looking for an Infantry Officer with special forces backgrounds in either Amphibious or Parachuting experience. My wife

and I had holidayed for a month in a campervan in Australia in 2009 and loved it, so we decided to apply just to see what kind of offer, if any, came back. When it did, we made the decision fairly quickly.”

On September 30, 2014, he discharged from the Irish Defence Forces, having served for exactly 13 years. The next day, he joined the ADF, and was posted as Captain to the 6th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment (6 RAR) in Brisbane.

The move saw Billy and his wife enjoy a new life in what he describes as an idyllic setting, but just three months into his life down under came that fateful New Year’s Eve.

EXPERIENCE Recalling the events of that day, Billy remembers how he immediately used his training to remain calm, even though he felt nothing below his neck. “Basic combat first aid training kicked in after the first few seconds of thinking I was dying,” he says of the moments just after he was pulled from the sea. “I paused, then went through CABC – Catastrophic bleed (I didn’t think I was bleeding out), Airway (not blocked), breathing (very tight and shallow but ok), circulation (well, my

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Billy on a parachuting course.

heart was pumping), so then I settled down a bit.”

He remained miraculously calm as he was driven by ambulance to the nearest hospital. While Rita was obviously very worried, he reminded himself that he was “lucky to be alive” and that “anything after that was a bonus”. He adds: “To be honest, I was a bit annoyed that our plans for New Year’s were thrown off!”

Billy was fitted with a halo brace on January 2, completely immobilising his upper body. This involved a metal ring being placed around his head, which was then anchored to his skull, with metal rods connecting the ring to a chest vest, to keep his head, neck and spine aligned to enable the healing process to take place without risk of further injury.

“That bad boy stayed with me for ten long weeks,” he says of the halo, but it was just one of the many vital treatments he required from the outset. “I had also lost all bodily functions,” he adds, “so they had to insert a catheter. I was given daily bowel therapy, with no success for more than two weeks, and I had to be manually moved and rolled over to ensure blood didn’t pool. I also had special electric-powered boots

attached to encourage blood flow in my legs.

“It was very tough to take. I was fed only liquid foods, and was given water through a straw. To get a nurse’s attention, I had to blow into a tube placed alongside my mouth.

I felt helpless.”

Again, the mental toughness he learned and honed in the Defence Forces helped him through this difficult time. “The mental side of things had to be rock solid, in order for the physical to follow,” he tells me.

“Physically, the biggest challenge for me was the frustration of my hands not working, but mentally, it was stopping myself from even going down the dark road of feeling sorry for myself, thinking about all the things in life that were maybe not out of the question – would I walk again? How would we cope? - it’s easy to think about those things and let them consume you. But if you are at the start of a road and you know nothing good is at the end of it, there’s no point in going down that road.

“There were plenty of pretty grim and dire circumstances, but in all honesty, I saw it all as a challenge, another test of my mental capacity and strength, and I leaned on all

the previous occasions where I had gone through tough stuff and then reminded myself that I wasn’t a quitter or someone who would feel sorry for themselves in this situation. To do that would solve nothing. Even just the thought of something more was better than the acceptance of nothing.”

That refusal to give in was also inspired by something Rita pinned on the wall of his room at a special spinal unit: the poem Invictus, by William Ernest Henley. Many lines from the inspirational poem rang true for Billy at that time, such as: “In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance, My head is bloody, but unbowed.”

Billy determined that he would remain unbowed, and that he would be “the master of my fate… the captain of my soul,” as the poem continues, and so began a rigorous, often agonising rehabilitation process during which he refused to give up.

“It was a long and tiresome process,” he tells me, “but I did not take the foot off the pedal. I stood after a month. I regained bladder control after about six weeks. I had to work tirelessly on my hand and arm dexterity, but little by little I recovered.”

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BILLY HEDDERMAN The halo came off after ten weeks, and step by step, Billy regained the ability to walk, slowly and painfully at first, with gradual improvements that amazed the medical personnel tending to him.

“I was always grateful for any progress, but I was never satisfied,” Billy tells me. “I needed to consistently challenge myself.”

Four months later, he was discharged and became a day-care patient at his new army base’s rehabilitation unit, where he continued to make determined steps towards recovery.

Remarkably, just seven months after suffering his catastrophic injuries, Billy took and passed the army basic fitness test consisting of 30 push-ups, 60 sit-ups and a 2.4km run in under 12 minutes and 17 seconds. Just one week earlier, he could only do a few push-ups. One week later, he ran a 10km race.

“It was somewhat of a proof to myself that I was slowly clawing my pre-injury life back,” Billy says. “My wife was confident that I was stubborn enough to complete it, but was worried I’d fall over, which was a distinct possibility – but she knew better than to convince me otherwise.”

Billy returned to his regiment parttime, and says that “the medical staff and the commanders in 6 RAR were super to me, and even better, my bosses didn’t treat me like some sort of special case, and it felt great to be just another officer again”. He was successfully integrated back to full combat duties in 2016.

He has also returned to doing all the things he loved before the accident, defying any fears most people would have. This included a return to that very same beach where everything so nearly ended for Billy, and a swim in the very spot where he had been injured. “I felt it had to be done in order to get over any fear I may have had about the water,” Billy says, “but I didn’t want it to be a massive ordeal. It was, like everything else, just part of the process.”

He also returned to freefall parachuting, something he loved doing

A few days after the accident, when Billy could only move one toe and thumb.

Learning to walk again.

With Rita, my first time outside the hospital since the accident.

Home from hospital, grateful but not satisfied.

and had gained significant expertise and experience in during his time in the Irish Army. He recalls how strange it felt to go up in a plane again for the first time. “No one was any the wiser that there was a recovering quadriplegic about to jump solo from 14,000 feet,” he says. Once he made his jump, pulled his chute and gazed across the skyline, he let out a roar of celebration. “I was so happy,” he says. “It was just so surreal to think of where I was a year before, how utterly destroyed my body was and how, from the absolute brink of death, I was freefalling through the air.”

With fears conquered, Billy can now enjoy his life again, having come through a remarkable journey.

He is now back to fully operational duties, and has a young daughter, Lara, with Rita. “It’s fantastic,” he tells me. “For a period, because of my injuries, we didn’t know if we would be able to have kids, so it was really great to have Lara. She’s a really happy little girl, so we’re delighted.” Billy also tells me that he and Rita have another child on the way in June.

Billy tells his remarkable story in his book, Unbowed: A Soldier’s Journey Back From Paralysis, the writing of which, in many ways, was a form of catharsis for him. “For sure it was cathartic,” he tells me.

“It was good to capture everything because sometimes time fades the memory of events, and I suppose it serves as a reminder to me not to forget what we went through. In some ways, it has brought my self-efficacy, in terms of my own resilience, to a level where I’m quietly confident that not much else could break me.”

The telling of his story, though, is not just for his benefit, Billy points out. “The entire idea behind the book is to help people see that mental toughness and the will not to give in easily really does work.”

The book includes a concluding chapter offering Billy’s thoughts and advice on mental fitness, resilience, determination, and accepting what you can’t alter and changing what you can, in which he challenges readers to contemplate what he says and come to their own conclusions about what his story can mean to them.

I ask him what his message would be to anybody facing similar challenges in life.

“Don’t give up easily,” is his straightforward answer, and with that message in mind, Billy’s story teaches us that we can all, indeed, be the masters of our fate.

Unbowed: A Soldier’s Journey Back From Paralysis, by Billy Hedderman, is published by Mercier Press, €16.99

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AIR AMBULANCE

COUNTRY AWAITS FIRST COMMUNITY AIR AMBULANCE The delayed ICRR-run service aims to cover large sections of the south.

T

he establishment of Ireland’s first privately-funded community air ambulance has been met with delays, but its owners hope to become operational in the next few months.

Run by the Irish Community Rapid Response (ICRR) charity dedicated to pre-hospital care, and reliant on donations, the air ambulance will be based at Rathcoole airfield in north Cork, and aims to cover large swathes of the south of the country, spanning from Kerry to Wexford. The rest of the country will continue to be serviced from the Rescue 112 Air Corps helicopter based in Athlone.

The addition of this helicopter to the country’s rapid response service should

provide a great deal of assistance to the extremely busy Air Corps helicopter, which carried out more than 310 emergency medical missions in rural communities in 2018.

Originally planned to begin operations around the turn of the year, the ICRR’s air ambulance, which would cost €2million per year to run, had raised enough to fund the first six months of its operation, with fundraising for the remainder ongoing.

When up and running, the air ambulance, which will be tasked through the National Ambulance Service 999/112 call system, is expected to respond to up to 500 calls per year, and bring most of the population of a 15,000 square kilometre area within 20 minutes of critical medical care. It is planned to

operate seven days per week and will be critical in getting emergency cases from inaccessible locations to hospitals as quickly as possible.

The air ambulance was initially planned to be doctor-led, but the decision was later made to launch the service with an advanced paramedic and an emergency medical technician (EMT) on board to deliver the care required.

Training of the National Ambulance Service staff is currently underway.

ICRR founder John Kearney, who has been working and lobbying for more than a decade to launch a Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) in Ireland, said that unfortunately it just wasn’t possible to run a doctor-led service.

“Ultimately that’s where we’d like to get to,” he told the Emergency Services forum in October of last year, “but we are aware of the shortage of doctors in the health system and we don’t want to take them away from the frontline.

Hopefully, as this service builds, we will get to that point, but let’s get up and running, and we’ll build on that.”

A number of HEMS experts from around the world had expressed concern that the air ambulance would not be doctor-led, as most similar services around the world are, and called for the HSE to enhance the current HEMS resources, saying it is “imperative” that the correct, doctor-led model is put in place.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health responded to these concerns, saying: “It should be noted that from the outset, any new air ambulance service will operate as an extension of the exiting Emergency Aeromedical Service (EAS). The EAS, based in Athlone, has been successfully operating for many years in partnership with the Irish Air Corps with the crewing model of an Advanced Paramedic and an Emergency Medical Technician.”

The spokesperson added: “As our aeromedical service evolves, we will continue to review how we can provide the best possible level of care for patients. That might include physician crewing, or it might include further expanding the competencies of EAS advanced paramedics or introducing specialist critical care paramedics.”

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DUBLIN & WICKLOW MOUNTAIN RESCUE TEAM

HELP FROM ON HIGH John Kavanagh of the Dublin & Wicklow Mountain Rescue Team talks to Adam Hyland about the valuable work this organisation carries out.

T

he city of Dublin is well served by first responders when it comes to emergency situations, but what happens when people need immediate medical care or rescue in less accessible areas, such as in the surrounding hills? That’s where the Dublin & Wicklow Mountain Rescue Team (DWMRT) comes in.

Providing a mountain rescue service for people who find themselves in difficulties, get lost or injure themselves in difficult terrain, they are on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, responding to emergencies in upland areas across Dublin, Wicklow and Louth, and though they are run completely by volunteers, provide a professional-standard rescue operation.

The team is one of 11 across Ireland, including ten other regional organisations and the Search and Rescue Dog Association (SARDA), who work on behalf of An Garda Síochána to provide rescue services in remote parts of its operational area.

“Although there is little call for us in the greater Dublin and Meath regions, we respond to a large number of call outs across the mountains and in upland terrain,” DWMRT deputy team leader and public Relations Officer John Kavanagh tells me.

“We also provide swift water rescue,” he adds. “That actually came about after an incident we were involved with a few years ago, after which we thought it would be a good thing to improve our abilities in this respect to protect our own team members as well as to provide safe rescue of people.”

CALL OUTS Search and rescue in difficult terrain can cover a range of operations, which keep the DWMRT group busy all year round. “The main rescues we get called in for involve people in upland areas, mainly people using the hills for recreation,” John says. “These are usually people who have become disorientated, or who have suffered injury. Lower leg injuries in hill walkers is probably our single biggest reason for call outs.”

The team responds to such call outs by sending out personnel to locate the person in question, and bring them back to safety or to an area accessible to other emergency service vehicles, while they are also involved in potentially hazardous operations such as rescuing people from cliffs and other precarious drops.

I ask John what he considers to be the most difficult call outs to respond to. “It really depends on what you see as difficult,” he replies. “There are

obviously physically demanding call outs, such as a long search and carry operation, when it takes a lot of time and effort to locate and then carry a person back to safety or an emergency vehicle, but there are other call outs that are difficult for other reasons.

You might have a missing person call out for a despondent, or possible body recovery, and those are very difficult for the people directly involved.”

The procedure for calling for the assistance of the DWMRT is straightforward. “If somebody gets injured or in trouble in the mountains, the correct procedure is to call the Gardaí and tell them they need Mountain Rescue,” John says. “The Gardaí will determine what type of assistance is needed and what operational area the person is in. If they happen to be in our area, the Gardaí will task us with the call out.

We also work with the Irish Red Cross’s Glen of Imaal Rescue Team, and have a Call Officer who responds initially to the Garda call, followed by the gathering of further information about the incident either from the Call Officer or from the person who phoned in their situation. The Call Officer will then talk to the team leader and between them they will determine what sort of response is required, followed by tasking the relevant volunteers using a platform called Sarcall.

“Every one of our volunteers is effectively on call all of the time - we don’t have a roster - so who is tasked with the operation is dependent on the type of response.”

There are three levels of response, John tells me. “We have standby responses, where we are told that another team are dealing with a response and may need us. In those situations, we don’t take any action other than to be on standby, but if we are needed, we take action.

“Then we also have a limited response, say for example a mountain biker has been injured, and they are a short distance away from a track that can be reached by an emergency vehicle. This would be a location-based

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www.sosfotos.com- Emergency photographs.

call out that people nearby can respond to. For a longer call out, such as a missing person or an injury far into the mountains, we need all our volunteers to respond and let us know if they are available or not. In these cases, more often than not we also call in SARDA Ireland, with whom we have a very good relationship.”

That relationship extends to all of the other emergency services. “It has to,” John tells me. “We are all working towards the same purpose of keeping people safe and tending to them when in need, so we all work together very well to do that. We are all obviously volunteers, but we try to operate within a very professional capacity, so that relationship with other agencies is always professional, and they treat us in the same manner.”

Due to their ability to access and traverse difficult terrain, they are often also called on to assist the emergency services during severe adverse weather conditions.

“Last year, because of the major snow storms, we needed to fill other roles,” John tells me, “because nobody could get through areas like the Sally Gap and other upland locations, so we were providing a valuable response in mountainous Dublin and west Wicklow, places like that. On the weekend of the worst weather last March, we had 24 operations where we were assisting the ambulance service because they simply couldn’t get their ambulances into housing estates, so we volunteered to help them with that, as well as helping to get emergency service personnel into and out of work.”

GETTING BUSIER Call outs for the team are on the increase. “Last year we had 106 call outs,” John says, “which made it our busiest year ever, along with 2013. Not including those two years, we average around 80 call outs per year. This is a big increase on the previous decade.

Up to 2008 we were responding to around 30 or 40 call outs per year, but that year we had around 60, and that has grown year on year.”

By March of this year, DWMRT had already responded to 16 call outs. One reason for this, as John points out, is that more people are beginning to see the hills around Dublin and Wicklow as a source of recreation.

“Back in 2008 when call outs started to increase, Saturday and Sunday afternoons were the most common times for call outs, but by later that year we were starting to get a lot more call outs during the week, during normal working hours, and the theory behind that is that a lot of people lost their jobs around this time during the recession. So, whereas people had been in work, they were now going into the hills for recreation, and some were getting into difficulty or getting injured.

There are definitely more people going into the hills, which is a good thing, because people are more

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interested in staying fit and healthy, and hill walking is a nice and achievable way to do this. But it’s not so much that more of those people are getting injured, the percentage is staying the same, it just stands to reason that the more people who go hill walking or who use the mountains and hills for recreation, the more injuries or cases of people getting lost there will be.”

As a keen hill walker, however, John is also keen to point out: “It must be said that hill walking is still a very safe activity.”

To provide the service they do, DWMRT has a command vehicle and three response vehicles capable of accessing rugged terrain and carrying the equipment needed to extricate people from remote areas. Once they leave the roads though, it is up to the team to manage the environment and carry the equipment, often for hours on end.

“All of our individual personnel are expected to have the equipment and clothing required to be operational on mountains for up to 12 hours,” John tells me. “In terms of kit, we carry vacuum mattresses and the regular medical equipment,” but upon finding an injured person, the journey back can be an exhausting and difficult one. “We do have three stretchers with wheels so we don’t always have to carry a patient an entire distance,” he says, but this in itself can take hours.

However, the organisation can administer emergency medical assistance as soon as they locate the missing or injured person, as they are approved by the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council (PHECC), which means personnel who work as emergency medical technicians, paramedics and advanced paramedics in their day jobs can also operate to those same standards of care while working with the DWMRT. While, as John tells me, the team is “lucky to have people in the medical professions, such as doctors or emergency paramedics”, the volunteers come from a range of backgrounds.

www.sosfotos.com- Emergency photographs.

DWMRT.

John works in IT, although he has now trained as an EMT, but there are volunteers from construction workers to accountants who give their time to the organisation.

“We are all brought together by a shared love of the outdoors,” John tells me. “But if there is one thing that brings us all together it is that we all know that things can sometimes go wrong in the outdoors. If I am out on a hill walk and I get injured, I would like for somebody to be able to come along and help me, and rescue me from the scene, and if nobody volunteers to do that, you are in trouble. We recognise that being in the outdoors involves some risk, and somebody has to provide help when it is needed.”

TRAINING With the increasing number of call

DWMRT.

outs per year, DWMRT’s volunteers are busy enough, but on top of that, apart from their day jobs, they also undergo continuous training. “We train one weekend and one evening per month minimum, that is our core competency,” John tells me, “but there is so much more built in around that.

We constantly run courses and training in things such as first aid, etc, but we would also have training for more specific and expert operations such as rope rescue, swift water rescue, things like that. They can train independently of the core group in order to keep their skill levels high. So there is training of some sort going on every week.”

There are obviously different levels of skills among different people, and those involved in rope or swift water rescue obviously need to keep their skills at a high level. “The important

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DWMRT.

thing for us is safety,” he says, “so it is important to have people with high levels of skill and expertise in the team, in order to allow us to do our job and provide our service in safety.”

“When you are in the outdoors, there is always an element of danger, but that is something that by necessity we manage very carefully. The safety of our team members is our highest priority. All our team leaders are constantly taking risk assessments, whether that be concerning the route to take in a search, or the walking pattern and what direction to move a stretcher in, or securing an anchor for an absailer to reach a casualty. It is constantly risk assessed before any action is taken.”

RECOGNITION DWMRT recently won a National

The Dublin-Wicklow Mountains are a fantastic resource, with great opportunities for outdoor recreation. In the main, such activities are very safe, but there are ways to reduce any associated risk.

DWMRT ADVICE

DWMRT.

Lottery Good Cause Award, which brought in some much-needed funds, but also helped to raise awareness and recognition of the valuable work they do.

“From a team member perspective, it is very good for morale, because it is great to be recognised at a national level. That particular award is called Good Cause for a reason, because every other organisation within that category were all very good causes, and to be recognised among such causes and organisations nominated within that category, and to win it, is great, to know that people recognise you are doing a good job.”

As a charity organisation, DWMRT receives some funding from the Government, but not nearly enough to cover their operational costs, and each volunteer has to cover their own individual costs to provide the service.

As a result, fundraising also plays a big part in their activities.

“Our next big fundraising event is Walk The Line (www.walktheline.ie) at the end of March. It’s a dusk into dark walk that starts in the afternoon and goes on into the night, with two distance options – 11km or 22km, which start and finish at Glencullen Adventure Park. We offer guidance along the way with it and the intention there is to encourage people who may not be used to hill walking in twilight or the dark, to give them an introduction to that. As well as offering the chance to look down over the twinkling lights of Dublin from a great vantage point, we also make it a very friendly and fun atmosphere, with welcoming fires at the end of your trek.”

With fundraising another necessary task to be undertaken, how, then, on top of their frequent call outs and training, do volunteers find time for their day job and to live a normal life?

“It can be difficult, but it’s not that big a burden that you can’t do your job or have a normal life,” John tells me.

“In the end, we are all team members because we enjoy being team members, and it is rewarding in itself to be part of it.”

• Before you go, plan your activity; check the weather forecast, and know what time it’ll get dark. If you expect to be out near the hours of darkness, carry a torch and spare batteries.

• Plan for, and carry equipment to deal with, unexpected delays – extra clothing and a survival bag will help if you have to stop for a while.

• Bring adequate food and water for your activity, and maybe some extra in case of delays.

• Know your route and plan some escape routes in case things go wrong.

• Tell somebody where you are going and what time to expect you back; don’t forget to tell them when you’re safely home!

• Always carry a charged mobile phone, but don’t use it for navigation. A paper map and compass, and the skills to use them, are essential for navigation.

• Consider attending training such as Mountaineering Ireland’s Mountain Skills programme.

• Carry a first aid kit. It’s best to attend some first aid training too.

• Should you find yourself in need of help, call 999 or 112, ask for the Gardaí, and tell them you need mountain rescue.

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TECHNOLOGICAL TOOLS

TECHNOLOGICAL TOOLS THE LATEST INNOVATIONS FOR THE WORLD’S EMERGENCY SERVICES.

EMERGENCY CORRIDOR Car manufacturer Ford is testing a new system in Germany that will alert drivers to approaching emergency vehicles and encourage them to move aside to create an “emergency corridor”.

In partnership with Vodafone, Ford has designed the system to tell drivers which side of the road to move towards in order to give fire trucks, ambulances and police vehicles a faster route through traffic.

The “emergency corridors” are created on two-lane roads as drivers pull over to either side in a uniform fashion enabled by the connected system that communicates with other vehicles on the road. On roads with more than two lanes, the process will depend on whether cars are driven on the left or right side of the road. “Ford has a long history of developing and testing vehicle to traffic infrastructure and vehicle to vehicle communications that can contribute to greater road safety and efficiency across the world,” said CEO of Ford Germany, Gunnar Herrmann.

“Together with Vodafone and in cooperation with other companies involved, we will gain decisive

insights on the Düsseldorf testing grounds to further advance the networking of vehicles.”

CEO of Vodafone Germany, Hannes Ametsreiter, said: “The digital revolution is bringing new forms of mobility which may help save lives on our roads. When cars communicate with each other, our rescue teams get a clear path forwards, so they can provide the right help at the right time, in situations where every second counts.”

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TECHNOLOGICAL TOOLS

SURVIVOR LOCATION

SMOKEBOT

Firefighters in Reno, Nevada, and Erie, Pennsylvania, recently tested new sensors designed to assist in the faster location of people in emergency situations.

Using new technology created by tech company SimpleSense in a simulated emergency response exercise, the Reno Fire Department located two survivors in a fourstorey building within four minutes during a primary search. The primary search would normally take the department 16 minutes.

In a similar exercise in Erie, firefighters took eight minutes to locate two individuals in a threestorey building using traditional search methods, while the exercise took just two minutes using the SimpleSense sensors.

The technology uses infrared sensor fusion and artificial

Scientists in Sweden have developed a robot to navigate through smokefilled rooms more effectively than human firefighters.

Utilising gas sensors, radar, a laser scanner and thermal camera, the SmokeBot created by Orebro University scientists can aid firefighters in dangerous situations in which visibility is poor by identifying and plotting the safest routes.

“We target robots operating in low-visibility environments, a scenario where robots could be very helpful, but in which it was not possible to use them prior to SmokeBot,” said computer science professor and project coordinator Achim Lilienthal.

“To enable using robots in lowvisibility scenarios, with a lot of smoke or dust, for example, we developed novel sensors and perception and cognitive approaches tailored to these sensors.”

Featuring an active heat shield, the robot also has the ability to autonomously locate Wi-Fi connected areas in the event of a connection with the control team being lost.

intelligence algorithms to identify spots of interest within a location, before relaying through cloud technology the fastest way to get to that area, reducing response times and providing improved awareness of surrounding hazards.

SimpleSense plans to run additional tests in schools, universities, offices and other high hazard buildings across the US to determine how best to implement their sensors.

CONSTRUCTION SITE SAFETY A new device solving the problem of multiple fire doors being propped open during construction work has been developed by UK fire safety equipment manufacturer Bull Products.

The Shuttle Intelligent Fire Door Retainer enables construction companies to avoid the illegal and unsafe practice of holding fire doors open with door stops or other objects that will not automatically close the door if a fire breaks out.

Incorporating dual listening technology that learns and reacts only to the installed fire alarm’s specific acoustic signature while ignoring all other alarms and

sounds, the device can be set to operate at specific times and dates.It also features an easy night release function and fault reader.

This latest innovation comes shortly after Bull Products’ recently introduced Cygnus Wireless alarm range that alerts workers to danger and prevents access into exclusion zones.

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EMERGENCY SERVICES SHOW

DISCOVER EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AT THE EMERGENCY SERVICES SHOW 2019 Emerging technologies and how they are improving the efficiency and effectiveness of emergency response is set to be the key focus of a large convention being held in the UK later this year.

T

he Emergency Services Show 2019, the UK’s largest event for the emergency services, will take place at the NEC, Birmingham, on the 18th and 19th of September, and will feature a range of new technologies that can help the emergency services and first responders to do their jobs more safely and effectively.

“Technology and innovation are enabling our emergency services to tackle the complex and dynamic challenges they face today and into the future,” says ESS event director David Brown. “This year, more than ever The Emergency Services Show is set to be a showcase for new and emerging technologies that will deliver enhanced efficiency and effectiveness in operations, enabling police, fire & rescue, ambulance and rescue professionals both to do more and to do it better.”

The convention is a unique event which gives emergency services professionals access to the very best knowledge, training, technology, kit and support networks to prepare for future incidents and carry out their roles to the best of their ability.

The exhibition will feature more than 450 companies, including leading names in vehicles and fleet,

communications, technology, medical and firefighting equipment, search and rescue, extrication, water rescue, first response, protective clothing and uniforms, public safety, vehicle equipment, training, community safety and station facilities.

New technology on display will include connected vehicles that serve as mobile communications hubs, satellite communications, hard-wearing and shock-resistant mobile computers, tablets and phones, data, cloud storage, wearable tech, connectivity, drones, hybrid and electric vehicles, body-worn cameras and other video capture systems.

Other technological innovations include the latest in protective fabrics, medical equipment, firefighting and rescue tools and equipment.

Information and Communication technology applications will also be showcased, including control room systems, data management, mobile apps for emergency service and public use, and the multiple technologies now being used to speed

and aid collaboration throughout the emergency services.

Seminars will allow visitors from all emergency services and allied organisations to ensure they are up-todate on the latest technology and best practice, and to gather insights from the successes and challenges of recent international emergencies. Last year, more than 2,500 visitors attended the programme of more than 90 CPDaccredited seminars, and this year’s event expects the same level of interest.

The growing free-to-visit event attracted a record total of 8,348 visitors from across the UK and International emergency services in 2018.

In the networking hub of the show, The Collaboration Zone, over 80 emergency services, voluntary groups, charities and NGOs share details of the support they offer, while members of other partner agencies will be available to discuss co-response and other areas of partnership working.

To find out more, visit: www.emergencyuk.com

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MEDICAL CANNABIS

Former bricklayer, rave promoter and clothing entrepreneur Martin O’Brien talks with Colin White about his varied career and his ultimate goal to bring medicinal cannabis to Ireland.

Martin O’Brien at Foxbury Farms.

GREEN SHOOTS OF

HOPE T he recent legalisation of recreational cannabis in California has unleashed a wave of new opportunities for those within the industry.

Things have progressed exponentially since 1996, when medical marijuana was legalised through a collective model whereby patients pooled resources to cultivate and distribute cannabis for medical use amongst themselves. This collective model paved the way for those looking to open dispensaries. Today, adults aged over 21 can possess a limited amount of the medicine and can grow up to six marijuana plants at home. The mass production of cannabis is fast-becoming an industry worth billions of dollars.

Martin O’Brien has been a central figure and political activist in the crusade for legalisation. His career in business has been an interesting one. Upon arriving to the US in 1990 as a bricklayer, O’Brien soon established himself as a leading promoter and event manager in the underground rave scene

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MEDICAL CANNABIS

exploding throughout California through a club night called The Gathering.

His close social circle included some influential business people and with the support of allies such as Denis Peron, Debbie Goldsbury and Don Duncan, O’Brien set about opening what has become the world’s longest-running medical cannabis dispensary in 2001.

The early years were fraught with difficulty for Patients Care Collective (PCC). “All our operations were federally illegal before the new legislation was passed in January 2018,” says O’Brien. “I’d get up at 6am every day during the early years and hope we hadn’t been raided by the DEA. For a few years we did many protests at the Federal Building in Oakland, as people were raided regularly. We formed the organisation, Americans For Safe Access, out of Berkeley, which led all these protests to protect patients’ rights for safe access to medicine. We were very much patient-focused during stage one of the business and a lot of our patients initially were AIDS, HIV and cancer patients.”

O’Brien became empowered from seeing first-hand the benefits cannabis could provide to patients time and time again. “People need access to clean medicine. That’s what PCC, Foxworthy Farms and our new California Cannabis Distribution Company (CCDC) is focused on. Whether it’s selling to adults for recreational or medical use, we’re all about patient-focused medicine. That’s what I see for the future.”

NEW LEGISLATION Although O’Brien has welcomed the rollout of the new legislation, he believes the plethora of stumbling blocks awaiting prospective players looking to succeed in the cannabis industry is particularly daunting.

The tax regime, combined with complex rules and regulations about

Martin O’Brien at Foxbury Farms.

growing, distributing and selling cannabis in the state can be a minefield, while attorneys’ fees, security upgrades and increasing operating costs are proving challenging for many.

Only companies that can manage the necessary infrastructure and compliance investment will be able to pounce on the potential lucrative rewards. O’Brien’s business partner and fellow Irishman David Bowers is the Compliance Officer and “the master of keeping us legit and ahead of the game” says the entrepreneurial businessman.

A FAMILY AFFAIR Although there has been growing

acceptance that cannabis can be beneficial in alleviating chronic pain, O’Brien has experienced considerable push-back from certain quarters.

“The new law has definitely changed the scope of things. And many farms in the state are still operating illegally.

There were 689 – mainly outdoor – cultivation farms complained upon in Sonoma County during 2018. Only 24 of these are legal operations.

Unfortunately, a lot of family farms and genetic strains have struggled to adapt to the new legislation and have gone by the wayside. I still regularly see helicopters over the hills from us drop down on other cannabis farms to chop everything down.”

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MEDICAL CANNABIS

Cinex.

CCDC. We operate a shared economy, and our employees are constantly moving up the chain. We see ourselves as a company of the future: patientfocused, with shared ownership and healthcare being made available.

AN IRISH PROBLEM

OG Kush.

UK Cheese.

Foxworthy Farm Cannabis range.

He adds: “Politically, California is half red and half blue: you’re never far away from a hippy or a redneck!”

O’Brien jokes. “As cannabis farming is still federally illegal, I definitely feel discriminated against. Everyone here thinks you’re loaded if you grow weed, but that’s not the case. I’m the lowest-

paid CEO within the Californian cannabis industry, hands-down.

Everything we earn goes back into the company to make us more successful.

Maybe it’s due to the fact that I’m an emigrant, but I see our team as a family. There are 60 of us now between the two dispensaries, the farm, and

O’Brien is adamant there is only one factor that will lead to the nationwide legality of cannabis in the US. “Money is the major influence,” he states. “US corporations have been waiting to get in on this action for years. Interestingly, a law was shoehorned in recently banning Canadians from investing in the cannabis industry.”

Does he feel legalising the drug as a medicine would be of any worth in an Irish context? “People in Ireland should be able to legally access cannabis,” declares O’Brien. “It needs to be clean and tested cannabis, free from pesticides. My goal is to help bring cannabis to Ireland as quickly as I can in whatever way possible. If, through our resources, we can help those people already doing great work in legalising cannabis, that’s where I want to be.”

He adds: “Everyone in Ireland should be able to avail of it. Who knows what will happen? All I know is that I will be putting every effort and energy into the process.”

For now, the entrepreneur feels at home in California. Regarded as a haven for liberal thought and action, his home city of Berkeley is a good fit for the outspoken Irishman. O’Brien is appreciative of the opportunities he has been provided with and is “primed and ready” for whatever changes come down the line. “Berkeley has always been welcoming and we’ve just taken over a new facility here for CCDC. We already have the manufacturing licence and in four to six months we should be up and running in the same facility. This means we are a vertically integrated ‘seed to sale’ company,” he concludes.

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TRAVEL OSLO

NORTHERN S EXPOSURE Oslo is not always the first destination to come to mind when thinking of a city break, but it should be, writes Adam Hyland.

tanding in the middle of a path almost a kilometre long, flanked by more than 200 eye-catching sculptures of the human form in all its guises, and looking up at a huge 55-foot monolith of granite-carved bodies climbing over each other in an attempt to touch the sky, you begin to understand just why Oslo is one of the most awe-inspiring, beautiful and rewarding places you can visit.

I have been to Oslo, and its iconic Vigeland Sculpture Park many times, but it never ceases to amaze me, and take my breath away, just as the capital city of Norway’s numerous other stunning sights do, urging me to keep coming back to revisit old haunts and discover new ones.

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TRAVEL OSLO

leads onto a square full of eye-catching statues that stand watch over the many ferries and sailing boats that come and go from the outlying islands. On one side of the fjord stands the stunning Opera House, designed so that you can stroll from its rooftop all the way down to the water, and the imposing medieval Akershus fortress, which has in its time served as a royal residence, military base and prison, and is still used today as a temporary seat for the prime minister.

On the other side of the harbour is the beautiful Aker Brygge, a wooden walkway that stretches out into Oslo fjord. It’s full of eateries and bars, and the atmosphere is always one of fun and wonder, especially in the sparkling twilight that seems to linger forever as the long summer days go on and on.

There’s plenty of indoor attractions to visit too. Oslo has an array of great galleries and museums that are well worth checking out, most notably the National Museum and Munch Museum, which both contain large collections of works by Edvard Munch, the man most famous for his iconic The Scream.

For me, though, the best museums are a quick ferry ride away on Bygdoy.

Five minutes across the water, this island hosts the impressive Viking Ship Museum that contains the world’s best-preserved Viking ships. It also hosts the Kon-Tiki museum housing the boats used by Thor Heyerdahl to sail from Peru to Polynesia and from North Africa to the Caribbean, and

0

€25

Both SAS and Norwegian offer direct flights to Oslo.

Fares are usually around €250 return, depending on how far in advance you book.

THE BASICS

It is a destination that we in Ireland, as relatively close neighbours, often, strangely, overlook, but it shouldn’t be. It’s a mere two hours away from Dublin by plane, and it is the perfect place for a short getaway, a place that oozes energy, offers dazzling views and great activities everywhere you go, and includes many surprising features that will leave you wondering how you have never heard of them before.

The city itself is around the same size as Dublin, so it’s easy to get around on foot, or by the many types of reliable public transport, and while winter brings freezing temperatures and snow that blankets the landscape in an eerie beauty, you will be surprised at how pleasant the weather is once spring and summer roll in. As temperatures hit the high 20s in summer, you may even be tempted to join the locals and take a plunge into the clean and clear water at the beautiful harbour, right in the heart of the city.

A casual stroll is probably the best way to sample Oslo on first visit, and a short walk from the centre is the bustling Mathallen food hall, where you can browse among the more than 30 eateries and sample both traditional Norwegian fare and dishes from across the world. You really should try a reindeer burger, or the mouth-watering waffles with brunost, a traditional brown cheese with a delicious caramel flavour.

The most beautiful part of the city centre, however, is beside the harbour, where the imposing art deco town hall

The Norwegian currency is the Krone: €1 = 10NK.

€1 10 KR

Although Norwegian is spoken in everyday life, almost all Norwegians speak excellent English.

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TRAVEL OSLO

Eat

• Contrary to popular belief, Oslo is no more expensive than Dublin. Though meals at touristy restaurants will make your eyes water, ethnic restaurants offer great value. Alcohol is expensive, with a beer or glass of wine averaging €8, but as Norway is not in the EU, you can bring duty free.

• Der Pepper Gror is a delicious Indian restaurant serving authentic cuisine.

Try the Chicken 65.

• Den Glade Gris (The Happy Pig) is a tasty restaurant specialising in pork dishes that will leave you in Hog Heaven.

• Rice Bowl is a cosy Thai café that could be the best value eatery in Oslo.

TRAVEL TIPS

the fascinating Fram Museum, which houses the Polar Ship Fram used by Nansen on his North Pole expedition and Amundsen on his voyage to the South Pole.

As well as fascinating information and interactive displays, you can roam around the ship and wonder how the sturdy crews managed to live for so long in such cramped conditions.

If a visit to the Polar Ship Fram leaves you looking for fresh air, you can find it by taking a short and very convenient trip into the surrounding hills. Indeed, perhaps one of the best things about Oslo is the ease with which you can leave the hustle and bustle behind and escape into nature to savour the landscape. The city’s T-Bane (much like our DART), goes from the heart of the city right up into the hills, to scenic spots such as Sognsvann and Frognerseteren.

Sognsvann itself is a beautiful lake within a forest, and just walking around it will provide enough for the senses, while Frognerseteren rewards your endeavours by offering outstanding views over the city and fjord.

You should also make sure to stop off at Holmenkollen ski jump on your way. You can stroll around the jump tower itself for free, but it is worth paying into the world’s oldest ski museum located underneath it. Not only does it present more than 4,000 years of skiing history, as well as polar exploration artefacts, but admission also includes a ticket to the observation deck on top of the jump tower. You can get part of the way up in a lift, but the last gruelling 114 steps must be tackled on foot. However, its panoramic views of the city are unparalleled, and make the effort well worth it.

Of course, during the summer months ski jumpers are nowhere to be seen, but if you are feeling adventurous you can zip-line from the top down, and it is from up here that you can really get a sense of just how beautiful this city is at this time of year, and if you are like me, you will start to make plans to see how a visit in winter compares.

Stay The Clarion Hotel Folketeateret is ideally located in the city centre. It offers free tea, coffee and evening buffet meals, and the breakfast will keep you going all day.

Try to avoid staring at the bizarre statue of Kate Moss in a compromising yoga pose outside the entrance.

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04/03/2019 12:33 12:20

MOTORING

A MICHELIN -STARRED

AUDI HAS LAUNCHED THE SECOND GENERATION A7 TO QUITE A BIT OF FANFARE. CONOR FORREST DISCOVERS WHETHER IT’S WORTH ALL THE FUSS.

MACHINE Dealers Not Plugged In Currently, pure-electric cars account for just 0.95 per cent of the Irish car market.

Given the push in many quarters for drivers to make the move to electric, it begs the question, why so few?

One study carried out in Scandinavia by scientific journal Nature might paint some of the picture. It found that “dealers were dismissive of electric vehicles and misinformed shoppers about vehicle specifications.”

It might be time for electric car manufacturers to provide more comprehensive crash courses to dealers on all things electric.

ight years ago the Audi A7 arrived to much fanfare, an ambitious four-door fastback that began with a bold face and lost its way by the time you got to the boot. Fast forward to 2018 and the second generation has really upped the stakes.

If you’re to judge this thing on looks alone, the A7 is a winner, from the sculpted doors and 20-inch wheels (that nicely fill the arches) to a floating roofline that draws the eye towards the updated rear end. At first it doesn’t seem drastically different from the previous version, but when

you place them side by side it’s easy to spot the contrasts – sharper lines, a sleeker profile and, at the back, the rear lights have morphed into a continuous, striking taillight first seen on the A8. There’s a much more aggressive feel about this.

Audi expects the 3.0L TDi in the fancier S Line trim will be the main seller in Ireland, and it’s not difficult to understand why. The 3.0L V6 my test model came with is more than capable in any situation, equipped as it is with 286bhp and a very pleasant gurgle (there’s a similarlypowered petrol version if you’re of

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MOTORING

“Audi really does know how to make them and this is best-in-class, with utterly comfortable seats and a fabulously sculpted dashboard with design elements echoed in the door panels – stylish, modernbut minimalist. ” Audi A7 50 Quattro S Line Engine: 3.0TDi V6 0-100km/h: 5.7s Top speed: 250km/h Annual tax: €290

that persuasion). Paired to a smooth eight-speed automatic gearbox, it’s capable of rocketing from 0-100km/h in just 5.7 seconds, which is incredibly fun to test repeatedly.

A wide and low stance, coupled with Audi’s Quattro four-wheel drive system means the A7 is very planted and it’s almost surprisingly fun to drive on windy roads – not exactly sporty but there’s plenty of grip and it doesn’t wallow in the corners. The steering is balanced and precise, although the A7 is a little prone to understeer.

Drive settings can be tweaked

depending on your mood: for the most fun choose Dynamic and slip the gearbox into Sport for pure aural pleasure.

For a big beast it’s pretty economical too, weighing in at 6.4L/100km or 44mpg. That’s partly thanks to Audi’s mild hybrid system (MHEV) – the engine is paired with a 48v hybrid system with regenerative braking feeding power to a lithium ion battery and a starter motor.

Four-wheel steering is another nifty first – the front and rear wheels turn in opposite directions for easier parking, manoeuvring and handling

at speeds of up to 60km/h. Beyond that they turn in the same direction for greater stability. It might cost €2,892 to equip but it’s very handy in a tight spot.

While the new A7 is a big improvement on the model from the outside, the biggest draw of the second generation is its interior.

Audi really does know how to make them and this is best-in-class, with utterly comfortable seats and a fabulously sculpted dashboard with design elements echoed in the door panels – stylish, modern but minimalist. One of the standout features is the integrated two-level screen system that results in a much tidier affair without too many buttons. Audi has made much of the fact that it includes so-called acoustic haptic feedback – there’s an audible and tangible click when you push a digital button. It’s surprisingly satisfying. Top marks for safety, with a range of tools keeping you on the straight and narrow from Audi Pre Sense City (which scans the road for other vehicles and pedestrians) to a system that detects if the driver is ‘inactive’. It’s quite practical too – the A7’s wheelbase has increased by just 10mm but passengers have an extra 21mm inside the cabin, without eating into the boot space.

Prices for the new A7 start from around 78,150 but if you’re already spending that kind of money you’ll be tempted to throw in a few extras too.

If you pick one, opt for the Tech pack (MMI Nav, reversing camera, Audi phonebox with wireless charging and the virtual cockpit) for a cool 2,900. Overall, It’s a cracking car that looks the business, provides a fun and engaging drive and is packed with as many technological gizmos and safety feature as you could ever need, not to mention your money’s worth in miles per gallon. If this was a restaurant, it’d be Michelin-starred – a success story in the making.

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MOTORING

REBORN FORD HAS ANNOUNCED THE ARRIVAL OF THE RANGER RAPTOR ACROSS EUROPE, WRITES CONOR FORREST.

2019 Ford Ranger Raptor Engine:2.0L twin turbo Power: 213bhp Torque: 500 Nm Launch: Mid-2019

ood news for fans of hefty pick-ups in the American style – the Ford Ranger Raptor is coming to Ireland in mid2019. Its big European launch came late in August, becoming the first ever vehicle revealed at Gamescon, the continent’s largest video gaming event. Two Range Raptors acted as rather striking bookends at the Ford stand and it was announced that the model will be added to the upcoming Forza Horizon 4, the open-world racing game on Xbox.

You might be used to seeing the Ford Ranger – available in single or doublecab format and capable of hauling around one tonne in its rear bed. But what exactly does the Raptor tagline bring to the table? In the US, the Raptor has been a beefed-up version of the extremely popular F-150 pick-up, a high-performance off-road truck designed to live in the wild – think larger tires, a wider bed, long-travel springs and shocks, and a 5.4L or

6.2L V8 engine block (the latter later replaced by a 3.5L twin turbocharged V6).

While not quite as enthusiastic in terms of power – launching with a somewhat scaled back 2.0L 213bhp twin turbo EcoBlue Diesel engine – the new Ranger Raptor is still built to withstand high-impact off-road activities, coupling a strong, reinforced chassis frame, a racing-inspired suspension, heightened shock absorbers and high-performance dampers with all-terrain Goodrich tyres specifically developed for the Ranger Raptor and a 2.3mm thick high-strength steel bash plate for underbody protection. Flared composite front fenders are designed to shrug off damage from off-roading and facilitate longer suspension travel and the oversized tyres. Alongside the twin turbo 2.0L block is a ten-speed automatic gearbox that it will share with the F-150 Raptor, built from high-strength steel, aluminium alloys and composites to save weight and increase its durability.

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MOTORING “Forget everything you think you know about pick-ups,” said Leo Roeks, Ford Performance Director, Europe. “Our new Ranger Raptor is a different breed – a thoroughbred desert racer and extreme lifestyle off-roader that can toil with the best of them in the harshest of working conditions.”

To help keep you on all four wheels, the new Raptor will also include six Terrain Management modes covering a wide range of terrain and driving scenarios. Normal is built for comfort, fuel economy and driveability, Sport provides you with a bit more spirited driving on tarmac. Grass/Gravel/Snow inspires more confidence on slippy surfaces, Mud/Sand improves traction and momentum, Rock offers smooth controllability on low-speed rocky terrain and Baja is designed for when you want to emulate the high-speed offroading on display at the Baja Desert Rally.

“The standout experience of the Ranger Raptor, hands down, is how far you can push it off-road and still ride like a millionaire onroad,” said Damien Ross, the Ranger Raptor’s chief programme engineer. “Everything about the Ranger Raptor builds on the already outstanding sophisticatedfeel and functional capability of the Ranger, and then goes further. From a driving dynamic fun standpoint, it is really an exceptionally special vehicle.”

CONOR’S TOP TIPS ON...

MOTORWAY BREAKDOWNS

HOP OUT Once you come to a stop in the hard shoulder, put on the hazards and leave the vehicle immediately.

THE HARD SHOULDER FAREWELL TO THE BEETLE The world is bidding farewell to the VW Beetle, which first rolled off the line in Christmas 1945 and was assembled in Ireland between 1950 and 1977 – available for £465 when it first went on sale. VW recently announced plans to cease production after the current generation, with new models set to take the torch from the iconic car.

DOWN TOOLS Never attempt even simple repairs at the side of a motorway – there’s too much risk.

STOCK UP Keep a breakdown kit in the boot – including high-vis jackets, a torch, gloves, a blanket and a first-aid kit.

GREEN CLEAN WINDSCREEN When it comes to electric cars, range anxiety is a very real thing. Often, 200km can seem like a daunting prospect, but what about 13,000km? That was the trek faced by polar explorer Mark Kaminsji, who began his lengthy #NoTraceExpedition in Poland back in May – 13,000km from Poland to Japan behind the wheel of a Nissan Leaf. Dublin to Cork seems simple in comparison.

IF GURE THIS PERCENTAGE OF CHILDREN TRAVELLING IN THE BACK SEAT OF VEHICLES WITHOUT PROPER RESTRAINTS (RSA RESEARCH) AMBULANCE IRELAND

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BOOKSHELF THE OLD BRIGADE: The Rebel City’s Firefighting Story 1900-1950

by Pat Boland

P

at Boland, retired Cork City Station Officer and renowned fire service historian, has done us all a great service with his new book, which tells not only the story of Cork’s fire service in some of the most exciting decades of the 20th century, but also much more of the history of the whole Irish fire service, and indeed the social and military history of the period.

This book is an eagerly awaited follow up to his previous volume, For Whom the Bells Tolled: A History of Cork Fire Services 16221900, and is written in the same informative and easy to read style.

It is lavishly illustrated not only with historic black and white images, but also colour photos of Cork Fire Brigade badges and insignia for the ‘train spotters’ and collectors among us.

Pat follows the brigade’s progress through interesting times, such as when the city became a focus of

the Anglo-Irish War, including the attempted destruction of the city by fire in 1920 by members of the Royal Irish Constabulary Auxiliary Division. That event brought Dublin firefighters to Cork to assist their overstretched colleagues, and Pat expertly tells how Captain Myers took the Thomas Street Leyland and a crew of volunteers, one of whom was Joe Connolly, later Chief Officer of the DFB. Pat has taken a wealth of detail and fact and woven a very readable history from them.

Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in fire service history, or the history of Ireland during the years of the revolution and Emergency.

Pat served the Cork Fire Brigade for many years, following in the footsteps of his father. His work is a testament to his deep knowledge of his subject and his evident affection and respect for

those who went before him. He has done them proud.

The Old Brigade is available online on eBay, €20, and from Waterstones in Cork.

CODE BREAKER: The True Story of Richard Hayes,

the Dublin Librarian Who Helped Turn the Tide of WW2

by Marc McMenamin The work of codebreakers at Bletchley Park is widely celebrated.

Less well known, however, is the story of Irishman Richard Hayes, who was the director of the National Library when he was approached by the intelligence services and asked to help break German codes.

He solved codes even those at Bletchley could not, resulting in the capture of prominent Nazi agents.

Code Breaker not only reveals how Hayes cracked the ciphers, but tells a captivating story of a true unsung hero.

Code Breaker is published

by Gill Books, priced €14.99.

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BOOK SHELF

ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE

by Eric Idle (Penguin / Random House) Monty Python fans will have been licking their lips at the thought of this hugely entertaining memoir. In a lighthearted look over his career, Idle covers the details fans will look for, from his meeting the other Python members to their scriptwriting methods, to the real stories behind the making of specific scenes, but there is so much more.

Idle offers insights into what it was like to go from lowly writer to famous actor, and dissects what makes a joke memorable, but he is not afraid to include his thoughts on more challenging times. Though he offers reflections on Graham Chapman’s death, laments the conditions the team had to work under, and vents at the lawsuit that prompted a reunion tour, Idle always retains an

NORTHERN HEIST ability to see the funny, or bright side, of life, as this title, and the song he will forever be remembered for, demonstrates.

Always Look On the Bright Side of Life is published by Penguin/Random House, priced €18.99 at Easons.

WITNESS TO WAR CRIMES:

The Memoirs of an Irish Peacekeeper in Bosnia

by Colm Doyle As peacekeepers, Irish soldiers often find themselves in the middle of the wars of others. For Colonel Colm Doyle, his most challenging roles came when he was seconded from the Irish Army to act as a European Community Monitor in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.

Soon appointed Personal Representative to the Chairman of the Peace Conference, he became a target for warring factions on all sides, but proved his skills at mediation. Such unprecedented access makes Colonel Doyle’s account a significant insight into the Bosnian War. He depicts the arrangement of ceasefires, as well as meetings with Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan

Karadzic. These experiences made him a key witness in the Hague trials of Ratko Mladic, Milosevic and Karadzic, and make for a highly recommended read.

Witness to War Crimes: The Memoirs of an Irish Peacekeeper in Bosnia is published by Merrion Press, priced €24.95.

by Richard O’Rawe

The Northern Bank Robbery in Belfast in 2004 became the largest heist in Irish history, with £26 million taken. The Provisional IRA were suspected but deny any involvement, and to this day nobody has been charged with the crime.

In Northern Heist, Richard O’Rawe gives us a fictionalised portrayal of this robbery, bringing us on a journey through Belfast’s criminal underbelly, involving tiger raids, money laundering and double-crosses. Sticking close to real events, there are parallels between fact and fiction here, giving this an edge of authenticity.

O’Rawe has previous, having spent eight years in jail for armed robbery and becoming a public relations officer for Republican prisoners in Long Kesh/Maze Prison. Ostracised by the Republican leadership after he wrote a book claiming six hunger strikers who died could have been saved, that sense of the criminal on the wrong side of the sectarian set-up comes through in this pageturner that bounds along with the daring of the bank raid itself.

Northern Heist is published by Merrion Press, priced €14.95.

AMBULANCE IRELAND

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ROAD SAFETY REPORT

2018 ANOTHER RECORD LOW FOR FATAL ROAD COLLISIONS Last year saw the lowest number of road deaths since records began, but more must be done to promote safety and reduce that figure to zero.

A

ccording to provisional road collision statistics from the Road Safety Authority (RSA), Ireland has continued to improve its road safety performance with a 4 per cent drop in road deaths in the last year. This makes 2018 the safest year since road deaths were first recorded in 1959.

In total, 149 people lost their lives on Ireland’s roads as a result of 142 fatal crashes up to 3pm on the 31 December 2018, compared to 156 lives lost in 141 fatal crashes in 2017.

The figures were published by the Road Safety Authority on 31 December, following an analysis of fatal collision reports by An Garda Síochána.

Commenting on the figures, Mr Shane Ross, Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport said: "Although the figures are marginally improved, they are not good enough. Speed continues to kill (130,000 drivers were detected committing speeding offences in 2018). Drink driving persists and unaccompanied learner drivers continue to break the law.”

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ROAD SAFETY REPORT

"As garda numbers assigned to Road Policing Units in districts around the country increase in 2019 I can guarantee that people will see a greater garda presence on the roads.

Whether there are any detections for traffic offences is entirely up to road users themselves.”

Ms Moyagh Murdock, Chief Executive, RSA, also acknowledged the efforts of the road using public in 2018, saying: "Your willingness to adopt good road safety habits, and support the introduction of life saving legislation has translated into lives saved. While one death is one too many, the reduction in road deaths in 2018 is welcome. However, while deaths did drop, the number of actual fatal collisions was one more than last year. So, the real difference between 2018 and 2017 is that in 2018 there were fewer fatal crashes that resulted in multiple fatalities.”

Concluding, Ms Murdock said: “Whilst the behaviour of the majority of road users has changed positively there are still other areas that remain a concern. These include the high failure rate for NCT, the large number of unaccompanied learner drivers taking to our roads, as well as distracted and impaired driving and in particular drug driving. We urge all road users to reflect on their behaviours and their responsibilities as road users. With the introduction of the new unaccompanied learner driver legislation, often referred to as the ‘Clancy Amendment’ we have taken on an additional 67 driver testers to deal with the increased demand for driving tests and to reduce the national average waiting time for a test to 10 weeks.”

While collisions involving cars dropped, serious concerns have been raised about the number of pedestrian deaths resulting from collisions with cars that occurred in 2018. There was a 32% increase in pedestrian casualties (41) compared to 2017 (31). Of the 41 fatal pedestrian collisions, 54% (22) were of those aged 55 years or older.

• Driver and passenger fatalities represent almost 3 in 5 fatalities (56%) in 2018.

• There has been an increase in the number of pedestrian fatalities (+10) in 2018 compared to 2017.

• Overall, compared to 2017, there was a net decrease in vehicle occupant fatalities from 91 in 2017 to 83 in 2018 (-8).

• A reduction has been seen among driver (-2), passenger (-6), motorcyclist (-5) and cyclist fatalities (-5).

• May (6) had the lowest number of fatalities in 2018, while April (17), June, November and December (16 per month) were particularly dangerous. The average number of deaths per month in 2018 (12 deaths per month) is less than the monthly average in 2017 (13 deaths per month).

FIGURES AT A GLANCE

“Reckless road users cannot be allowed to ruin the lives of innocent others and their families. In 2019 the crusade to improve road safety and save lives will accelerate.”

Commenting on the report, Ms Liz O’Donnell, Chairperson of the RSA, said that the introduction of and compliance with new road safety legislation, as well as an increase in Garda Roads Policing numbers in both 2018 and this year, will translate into lives saved and injuries prevented.

Ms O’Donnell also called for funding to be provided to An Garda Síochána to enable the national roll out of new smartphone and in-vehicle technology, commonly referred to as the Garda Mobility Project, which allows individual gardaí check the licence and insurance status of drivers at the roadside.

"This technology facilitates the identification of a range of offences at the road side, in particular disqualified drivers, unaccompanied learner drivers and those driving uninsured,” Ms O’Donnell said. “The introduction of this mobile technology will revolutionise road traffic policing and needs to be given the highest priority in 2019.”

Assistant Commissioner Dave Sheehan, Garda National Roads Policing Unit, An Garda Síochána, said: "I want to take this opportunity to thank the majority of law abiding road users who acted responsibly in 2018 and to the road users who supported Garda initiatives such as our two Slow Down Days, plus European Day Without a Road Death (project Edward). Your behaviour has saved lives and I want to acknowledge this. However, despite this there were drivers who refused to get the message and unfortunately learned the hard way.

“Over 130,000 drivers were detected committing speeding offences; almost 30,000 detected using a mobile while driving; almost 9,000 driving under the influence of an intoxicant; and over 11,000 were detected for seatbelt offences.

• Sunday (32) was the most dangerous day in 2018, followed by Tuesday (23) and Monday (22). Some 13 (41%) of fatalities that occurred on Sunday were in the early hours of the morning (12am-5am).

• Almost half of fatalities occurred over the weekend (Fri-Sun) in 2018 (47%). • There were more fatalities mid-week Tuesday-Thursday in 2018 vs 2017 (+13).

Dublin and Cork had the highest number of fatalities for all road users (16 in each).

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