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Exercise Border Sentinel sounds like a major operation, and while it was just an exercise in co-operation and discovery this weekend, it helped a diverse array of marine units prepare for what would happen if they ever faced a major naval operation.
More than 80 sailors gathered at the HMCS Hunter in Windsor to practise for the demands that would be made on them should an incident requiring their co-operation – a plane crash into the Detroit River, for example, or a collision between vessels – take place.
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Essentially, each participating agency tried to understand how the others worked, so they wouldn’t stumble across roadblocks when they engage in a real-life rescue operation.
Scenarios included spill containment, body recovery, administering first-aid and a mass casualty scenario, said Terry Seguin, community liaison officer with the LaSalle Police Service.
Agencies involved include The Royal Canadian Naval Reserve — HMCS Hunter, the Canadian Coast Guard, the U.S. Coast Guard, Guardian Marine Rescue (Colchester), Windsor Police, LaSalle Police, the RCMP, Leamington Fire Services, Essex-Windsor EMS, the Windsor Port Authority, and several other partner agencies.
Communication is a major aspect of interagency co-operation, said Seguin.
Since each organization has their own technology, they all relied on VHF radio to contact each other. That equipment is installed on most sea-going vessels, but there’s no telling how it will work on the Detroit River until it’s put to use.
“It’s a good time to explore those weaknesses and figure out how can we best overcome them,” said Seguin.
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“First aid on the water is sometimes a little bit different than it is just on land. So there’s different ways to stabilize people.”
Richard Hillier, Commanding Officer of the HMSC Hunter, said the annual exercise irons out any wrinkles ahead of a major event.
“There could be anything from a terrorist attack to just a security event and we really have to be able to talk to these people and know their capabilities and limitations and how we can work together,” he said.
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Dan Jenner, deputy unit leader of Guardian Marine Rescue (formerly Colchester Guardian), said the exercise is useful because of what’s discovered.
“We always find surprises. We always learn new things,” Jenner said.
Don Lucier, unit leader of Guardian Marine Rescue, said understanding each other is critical in the time constraints of an emergency. “You’re just trying to figure out how everybody works together with their strengths,” he said.
Learning where there are weaknesses is just as important, he said.
Among the operations practised on Saturday was search patterns.
“Somebody goes overboard. How to find them on the river? … We’re generally out in the lakes and the types of patterns we do would be different,” Lucier said.
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