SES officer gets flood training at Penrith - Penrith City Gazette

By Roderick Shaw

BLUE Mountains SES volunteer Andrew Bennett is training with NSW Ambulance officers at the Penrith Regatta Centre to improve his rescue skills.

"I decided I'd train as a swift-water technician, which means I can go into dangerous conditions to rescue people from floods and similar conditions," he said.

"At the moment my training only allows me to rescue people from the shore or to rescue myself from water."

He said there had been two water rescues in the Blue Mountains in recent times.

"But only Police Rescue are able to do that because there's no one in the Blue Mountains SES with that training," Mr Bennett said.

"In one case we had to get the Hawkesbury volunteers in."

He said although floods were not a major concern of Mountains residents, flash-flooding could and did occur.

"Some bushwalkers recently got caught in some flash floods up in Wentworth Falls."

He also said the Nepean River was prone to rise and would almost certainly be the cause of future flooding in the Penrith and Emu Plains region.

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On the move: SES officers play an important role in water safety around Penrith and in the Mountains, as volunteer Andrew Bennett is discovering.