Response

VICSES volunteers are skilled in many areas of rescue and emergency management work. The Eltham Unit responds and prepares for a wide range of these emergencies to protect the communities we serve. We refer to these tasks as "Operations". These operations can be grouped into eight different categories. VICSES has a range of safety information brochures which includes advice on what to do during storms, floods, bushwalking and on the roads.

Storm Damage	Road Crash Rescue	Land Search & Rescue	USAR
Vertical Rescue	Industrial & Domestic Rescue	Assist other Service	Community Service

Activation Process

Our Unit utilises the Emergency Communications Victoria (ECV) call-taking and dispatch system. The ECV calltaking and dispatch centre in Melbourne processes calls from the public and then dispatches them to us via a paging system. The process is outlined below:

Life Threatening Emergency

1. Emergency call received by Fire, Police or Ambulance processed by ECV
2. If rescue is required, and the call falls within our turnout area, our VICSES Unit is paged.
3. Our Unit Duty Officer (D/O) will acknowledge by radio or phone to ECV we have the call.
4. Our rostered rescue crew is paged to attend the call
5. The rescue crew respond and communicate with ECV via radio

Non Life Threatening Emergency

1. Call for assistance received by ECV and processed following the VICSES specific procedures
2. If the incident falls within our turnout area, our VICSES Unit is paged.
3. Our Unit Duty Officer (D/O) will acknowledge by radio or phone to ECV we have the call.
4. The Unit D/O will call the complainant and gather more information about the incident.
5. If the incident falls within our SOP's and response guidelines, the duty team will be paged to attend.
6. The rescue crew respond and communicate with the Unit D/O via radio