Batman's gone to ground over the last two days, immersed in his pre-hospital trauma course (PHTS) at the olympic velodrome in Bankstown, you know, out woop-woop. The velodrome was built for the Sydney 2000 Olympics, as the name would suggest, and the fact it's being used by trainee chopperdocs gives you some idea how the Sydneysiders feel about the millions of dollars pumped into the sporting venues seven years ago, venues they now regard as enormous white elephants.
The course is a bit like the ATLS course in the UK but with more emphasis on the bit where you actually rescue the patient rather than the assumed prior knowledge about how you treat their condition, and you have to draw up the drugs and the lines and break open the bags of fluids yourself rather than have someone else do it for you.
Yesterday they walked a couple of kilometres out into bushland to this cliff-face scenario, where a dummy climber had supposedly fallen from the rocks, and they practiced radio contact with the helicopter pilot, which I'm gleefully assuming means they were mucking about with walkie-talkies all afternoon saying "Roger" and "Over" and "ETA ten minutes", just like on ER, though George Clooney never had a bat phone as far as I remember.
Today they had a visit from the Firemen, who were done up like they'd raided the same dressing up box at The Early Learning Centre. Then the bat recruits got to play with the hydraulic cutting gear and take the top off a car wreck. I know it's all in the line of duty, but it does sound like some sort of fun orienteering summer camp run by the St John's Ambulance and Scout Association. I'm just waiting for the "dib dib dib" and I'll know where he's really been for the last two weeks.
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