St John Ambulance team members are hard to miss at events — their bright green uniforms and ambulance signifying they are there to help.
But as events have continually been wiped off the calendar since the COVID-19 pandemic announced itself in early 2020, the Campaspe region’s team of volunteers has gone into hibernation.
Nevertheless, as restrictions look to ease during the coming months, the team is excited to meet up again and get back to training.
Saturday, September 11, was World First Aid Day and St John divisional manager for the Campaspe region David Harris encouraged everyone to take up some level of first-aid training.
“I think it’s extremely important as many people as possible have some sort of first aid knowledge, even a basic one,” Mr Harris said.
“Particularly with CPR, it’s a live-saving skill at the end of the day and can make the difference between life and death.
“Ambulance wait times in country areas can be significant, so you could be waiting 20 to 30 minutes for an ambulance.
“When it comes to someone not breathing and someone not intervening for that time, it's going to be a very poor outcome."
The bulk of the work St John Ambulance's Campaspe team takes on is at local events, including at Rushworth’s speedway and Rochester’s go-karting track.
The bigger public events tend to be around Echuca, with a few others scattered around the other towns in the region.
Mr Harris said he could count on one hand the events they had been able to work at during the past 12 months.
“It’s been minimal; usually we’d be doing events every weekend in the Campaspe area at a minimum,” he said.
“There have been periods where we have been able to train and continue that, but that has been on hold, too, until restrictions lift and we are able to meet again.
“The majority of our focus for the end of the year will be our training and skill maintenance. Training has fallen behind because of the lockdowns.”
Mr Harris said training did not just amount to the physical side of someone’s health, with mental health training becoming a bigger piece of the picture in recent years.
“Predominately we are there for the purpose of if someone injures themselves, but it’s not the only reason,” Mr Harris said.
“If people are interested in first aid, we can give some demonstrations, some talks about CPR and basic first-aid techniques, such as treatments on snake bites that are common in the area.
“But our members are also from the community, so they get involved and chat with people and do welfare checks, starting conversations and talking to people if they need a chat.
“These times are stressful, so we can be an ear for someone to talk to, for whatever reason.
"It may not seem like that to the person we are chatting to, but we do try to get people to open up.
“Our members have a high level of mental health training as well as your general first-aid training.
“It’s becoming a big area, particularly with COVID-19 — it’s affecting people’s mental health quite significantly.”