St John Ambulance Bicycle Team Turns 20 Years Old

They say necessity is the mother of invention. In 1998, two years prior to the Sydney 2000 Olympics, necessity reared its head in the form of the realisation that one of the world’s biggest events would soon challenge the very way St John Ambulance Australia (NSW) supports events. With its large crowds, big venues, security and access challenges, the Olympics like no other event would test traditional approaches to major event coverage. St John Ambulance Australia (NSW) would need to think of new more innovative ways of responding to incidents, often across significant distances whilst navigating dense crowds and security restrictions. So it came to pass that in 1998 the St John Ambulance (NSW) Bicycle Emergency Response Team was born, commonly known as “BERT”, a service that would eventually evolve to become a key component of medical service delivery at major events across the state of New South Wales. Today the St John (NSW) BERT team is comprised of 50 volunteers and 25 mountain bikes which provide over 3,600 hours of coverage annually across 70+ community events. Of course the team was not always this big or so well resourced. The team coordinator, Ron McWhirter describes what those early days were like, “BERT started from humble beginnings, our first few events were local fun runs and community events in the St George area of Sydney. Our first major event was the opening of the then Olympic Stadium. When we first started we did not even have dedicated vehi...
Source: JEMS Operations - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Operations Press Releases Industry News Source Type: news