Sea Rescue and Emergency Sanitary Transport
(1996 - today)



 
 

Like all my mates, I carry out these works as a volunteer, which means that I get no economical pay back. In the other hand, these activities give me the opportunity to do something useful in my spare hours, at the same time that keeps me learning and recicling new knowledges continuously.

 
Sea Rescue
Since 1996, the year I finished the courses to get in, I have been an active member of the Sea Rescue team of the Sea Red Cross of Getxo. I serve as a sea lifeguard and skipper of the lifeboats 

Our work consists on rescueing shipwrecked people, localizing and taking away things that could be dangerous for the ships, towing broken down boats, and searching for disappeared people. 
We work at the command of SOS Deiak (the Basque emergency coordination centre) and the spanish Coastguard.
At the same time, I am also one of the 10 divers of the Underwater Rescue Group, which works on rescueing other divers with problems and searching for disappeared or drown people.
Acquired skills: 

Wide experience on group work: These activities are always carried out by a team, being of total importance the confidence between the members. The colaboration between the team-mates that work at a rescue operation is very important, since each one and the sum of the work done by all of them can be the fact that decides on the success of the rescue. 

Versatility and capability of making decisions at limit situations: The capability of improvisating is very important at these activities since when called out to an emergency, we never know what are we going to find when arriving. Also the best atmospheric conditions can turn into the most hostile ones in a matter of minutes, which would obviously affect the previously stablished protocols of actuation.

Emergency Sanitary Transport


In 1998 I started working in the field of the Emergency Sanitary Transport as a technical sanitary (paramedic) after obtaining the diplomas required for this. Later on, in 2000, I obtained the BTP class driving licence (for public and prioritary vehicles) and today I work as an ambulance driver as well. 
This, as the Sea Rescue one, is a volunteer job, which means that I do not get paid for it.

Our job consists on provide first cares to serious patients and victims of accidents, and also to take them to a hospital if it is necessary. We have five ambulances that provide urgent asistancy to the area of Uribe in Bizkaia, and we work at the commands of SOS Deiak (the Basque emergency coordination centre) and Osakidetza (the Basque N.H.S.). 
The acquired knowledge and habilities are: 

  Team work: The crew of each ambulance consists on three sanitaries (one of them is also the driver) being the co-operation between them of extreme importance to assist the victims properly with a good asistential quality.
Each member must assum a part of the exploration and stabilization of the patient, but regarding the work done by the other ones or the possible diagnostic achieved by them. 

  Versatility and capability to make decitions: This is the same than in the case of the Sea Rescue, since the crew never knows what is the real urgency of the case before they arrive the scene. This obligates the sanitaries to think fast and to decide, once in front of the situation, which is the best possible solution to the problem and how to take this decition to a good end.
Iñaki Rodriguez Rebolledo
Curriculum Vitae, 2004