24 May 2023
The huge plume of smoke and flames fill my image. "There is a fire," I hear my manager say over the walkie-talkie, "all climbers need to get out of the routes immediately, we are going to evacuate." I look around and see climbers looking anxious; they too see the flames. The routes close to the fire must go first. I grab an intervention bag, attach my hook and climb into the route with a pounding heart. Far away, fire brigade sirens invade my hearing as I climb towards the flames.
Moments later, I am back on the ground. Pfff, that was exciting. Fortunately, it was an exercise and the plume of smoke was not real. I walk towards my colleagues and see that we all need to recover for a while. It may have been an exercise, but it could just as easily have been real.
Fire is one of the calamities that can happen in the climbing forest. If this happens, I must immediately evacuate the forest with my colleagues and get everyone to safety. Fire is not the only calamity that occurs in the climbing forest. For example, sometimes thunderstorms come too close to the forest for safe climbing or someone gets unwell or injured.
To be well prepared for emergencies and to know what I as an employee should do in such a situation, there are the emergency training courses. This will cover, for example, how to handle my walkie-talkie during an emergency and what tasks the manager may give me. After this, we actually practice an emergency, such as a fire breaking out. For this, I am assigned a role. I will be an instructor, receive the fire brigade and the ambulance, be an unconscious guest being pulled out of a tree or be someone from the press.
In a real emergency, climbers are of course present in the forest. As the training takes place in the evening after closing time, extras who go climbing are present. When we practise the outbreak of a fire during training, the fire brigade also briefly comes around the corner. They practice with us and also pretend the fire is real. In this way, we learn together how best to act in this situation.
After practising the calamity, we discuss how it went. What went well? And what could be improved? Here, I listen carefully to how everyone experienced the training and also raise salient points myself. It is very instructive to hear from those present what went well and what needs to be improved.
One of my colleagues, Tony, says the following: "The emergency training strengthens my confidence in myself and what to do in an emergency. I see that the training promotes team dynamics; colleagues learn to trust and respond to each other."
Tony's experience describes how I experience disaster training myself. It is an important addition to our training. I create confidence in myself and in the team around me to solve emergencies as safely and quickly as possible. In addition, it is always nice to see that the extras and the fire brigade are willing to help us!
