The many faces of the Station Officer

Tough week for the team during carnival week especially the Station Officer.

The volunteer team mostly all take leave from their normal jobs to ensure there is strong cover for the busiest week ( people wise).

So I think it was a little unfair that the several times the Station Officer just relaxed it was caught on camera.

Once


Twice


Ok third time but ready like a coiled spring

Post incident work

Following yesterday's incident of a boat on fire off Old Harry, the truck headed out on patrol.

Oddly every time the truck stopped , a strange odour followed us and we managed to clear at least 3 ice cream queues in seconds.


On return to the station we discovered the reason ......... We managed to collect most of the cows pats between Studland and Old Harry on the incident.

Now if any scientist is reading this and looking for a material that sticks on despite a jet spray at a million psi, get in touch we have found a solution.

(Team - just note who is actually cleaning the vehicle in the photo)

Aye Aye, Captain Birdseye

Readers, firstly don’t adjust you monitors, it’s his just shirt. It would appear his ‘vertical hold’ button isn’t working, and no it’s not available as wallpaper.

I shall leave it to you to post any funny comments below:-

Co-Responder Training

Tonight saw one of our resident paramedics providing further training for the team, prior to our co-responder assessments early in October.

Reader: Remind me what’s a Co-responder? Well as a Coastguard Team we will work closely with South Western Ambulance Trust and co-respond to ambulance requests for assistance. The key term is assistance as we will not be replacing them!

After a refresher on basic resuscitation and use of a defibrillator we moved on to first aid and the use of ‘steri-strips’ for dressing wounds. As always we all take a turn as casualty; last time bandaging Gareth’s eyes….yes thanks chaps.

Well tonight Ian acted as a casualty who had accidently crashed his scooter into an ice cream van and cut his nose. So…….. out came the ‘steri-strips’.

Little did he know that in the background Deputy Blog was getting his revenge!

Congratulations!

Well done to Ian (Station Officer) for passing his full Motorcycle Test last week.

This allows him to:-
i). Remove the ‘L’ plates,
ii). Give us backies…. Sorry ‘ride with pillion’
iii). ...and deliver pizzas.

Well done boss!

(Note : For security and data protection purposes I've cunningly disguised the numberplate)

Life as a Station Officer

Its not easy being the Station Officer, you get "challenges" from above (the bosses) and below (the team), lots of paperwork and when it goes wrong you know who gets to sort it all out!

We are a delicate breed so perhaps when my children brought a new mug for me, they had a point.

Team....be afraid!

A day out.......to Weymouth

Today Austen and I attended the annual Station Officers meeting at Portland Coastguard. The meeting is a chance for all the Station Officers (SO's) and Deputies (DSO's) from the whole of the Portland District (Hants/Dorset border down to Exmouth) to get together and discuss any issues and share good practices.

What many people don't realise is that "Portland Coastguard"(our co ordination centre, aka the ops room) is in fact on the quay at Weymouth!

The operations room is where our full time Coastguards work, answering 999 calls, monitoring radio channels , launching lifeboats, scrambling helicopters and tasking Coastguard rescue teams. I would say that in the summer this place can get very busy, however with the Napoli and the Ice Prince to name a few the winter months can equally be busy.