WINTON & BEYOND
The Shire of Winton, located in Central Western Queensland is 472 kilometres from Mount Isa. It is located entirely within the State electorate of Mount Isa. It covers an area of 53,936 square kilometres and is home to a population of around 1600 people.
Winton town is the municipal centre for the Shire and serves as an important locale for residents, business, tourism and visitors to outback Queensland.
The area is home to multiple national parks and the world-famous dinosaur stampede site. Of obvious domestic and international interest is the opportunity to see the footprints left by a herd of 300 dinosaurs over 95 million years ago. The only such site known in the world – it is responsible for rapid tourism growth in the region.
Winton provides its public with emergency services as would be expected from a remote region of its size; it has its own hospital providing accident and emergency care, general inpatient hospital care and multipurpose health services. There is a road ambulance service, locally based police, SES and Fire Brigade.
A Quick Response helicopter emergency transport service fills the gap when an EHN emergency response helicopter is not available, with the primary purpose intended of the OQR helicopter to provide quick transport to front line responders in situations when normal road transport, outlying EHN aircraft or RFDS are not feasible due to time factors, lack of airstrip, roads out and so on.
In the following scenarios, for example the OQR helicopter could be used to facilitate
fast transport of First Responders to reach the area:
• Road trauma – to transport a paramedic to the accident location within the first hour, return to base hospital with paramedic and casualty/casualties or await road vehicle arrival.
• Medical emergency – transport paramedic to a location where road vehicle either cannot access or would take too long to reach the patient,
• Powerline damage - causing loss of services and risk of electrocution – transport technicians to the area to carry out assessment and repairs,
• Fire – transport fire fighters ahead of road vehicles to assess and report back to base,
• Flood, cyclone or other emergency – to provide transport for SES and emergency personnel to the location and or provide an aerial view of the area to assess requirements.
CONTACT
