The situations Kel Bendeich found himself in over his more than 50 years in Mines Rescue and Emergency Response Teams might have been almost unprecedented, but it didn’t make them any less crazy to imagine.
Kel was 16 years old when he joined the Sandhills Bush Fire Brigade in Branxton.
“I remember there was a grassfire, the wind changed, and the bush fire tanker ended up being right in the path of the fire. The local policeman Maurie Richards asked me to move the truck, but I had never driven one! I had only driven a car and a forklift at work.
“I got in and it moved! Maurie was then instrumental in getting me into NSW Fire Brigade when I turned 18, as a retainer fire fighter. I spent 14 years at Station 237 Branxton.”
Kel then went into the mines to work. He got his first job by just walking into the office at the Durham North Open Cut near Muswellbrook.
“I walked up to the office and the door swung open and this young bloke came hurling out the door and an older bloke was yelling at him to never come back.
“I thought ‘jeez he’s cranky’, and he looked at me and asked what I wanted. I said I came looking for a job and he asked if I knew anything about first aid. I told him I had my first aid ticket and he signed me up there and then.
“It was a great job, and it got me interested in safety as well as first aid response. From Durham North, I moved over to what is now known now as Hunter Valley Operations, back then it was Hunter Valley No.1 Mine, and I looked after the bathroom and first aid room.”
It was there that Kel was called out to an incident about 10-kilometres away where a Caterpillar 776 Belly Dumper had fallen some 40 feet off the side of a bridge trapping the driver.
“An initial emergency call for assistance was made to the South Maitland Mines Rescue at Abermain. They couldn’t assist as they were an underground mine rescue service only, but that immediately prompted the start of an open cut mines rescue in the Hunter Valley.”
The incident was the driver behind Kel’s motivation to ensure the mining industry had adequate emergency response at every site. He, with some mates, founded the first Surface Mines Rescue Team in NSW based at Hunter Valley No.1 Mine in 1981.
In 1983 the Mines Rescue Brigade at Abermain relocated to Singleton, and it was renamed the Hunter Valley Mines Rescue Service. An underground and surface training facility to cater for all mining operations.
Kel became one of two Surface Mines Rescue Instructors at Singleton.
“In 1989, I had a call from an ex-trainee by the name of Ross Rinella. He said to me, ‘I want you to come over to Borneo and do a month’s training with my guys over here’. I had no idea where he meant, I wasn’t sure if Borneo was on the east or the west coast of Australia!
“I went over for a month and when I got home it was Christmas Eve and I was on duty in Singleton. Ross rang and asked if I wanted to come back to Borneo for a full-time job. I thought it would be great, but I had a wife and four kids! But they said I could bring them all with me.”
Kel and his family stayed in Borneo for ten years with Kel as the Superintendent of Emergency Service for Kaltim Prima Coal in Kalimantan. He formed one of the first Surface Mines Rescue Teams in Indonesia and managed a team of 32 permanent emergency response crew members at two stations.
It was during his time in Indonesia that Kel had some memorable rescue missions.
Borneo is home to 222 mammals, the orangutan, Sun Bear and the giant Saltwater Crocodile – the biggest reptile on earth at around six metres long fully grown.
The local police requested the Emergency Services team to go and capture a huge saltwater crocodile that had reportedly taken a woman from the riverbank.
In most countries, remote mine site emergency services have a Memorandum of Understanding with the government that means they can be called to respond to any number of emergency situations if needed.
In this case it was to retrieve a woman’s body with the assistance of a Witch Doctor! You could say the entire situation was almost unprecedented!
Almost Unprecedented is exactly what Kel has called his podcast to share his stories from more than 50 years in Mines Rescue both in Australia and overseas.
“Everyone has a story to tell. I was telling the kids some of the stories and they said ‘why don’t you record the stories on a podcast?’
“I have always kept good records, newspaper clippings, photos and notes of everything I have been involved with, so it wasn’t hard to unearth the information and turn it into a format I could podcast.
“Almost Unprecedented means nothing is unprecedented, you should plan for anything and everything, even an aircraft crashing into an open cut mine!
“To me it’s never been abnormal, it’s just been normal work. It’s just a bit different to your everyday work.”
Kel has plenty of stories to tell, as well as spending 10 years in Borneo, he also spent time in Ghana, Cote d’lviore, Democratic Republic Congo and East Java Indonesia.
In 2012 he returned to Australia training teams at Xstrata/Glencore Newlands operation in Queensland, before heading to the Northern Territory. That’s where Episode Two of Almost Unprecedented is set.
Kel headed the rescue of two travellers who were stranded on top of their campervan in a flooded river. Help was nearly 1000 kilometres away by road so remote mine emergency team were tasked with assisting in the precarious rescue.
During his time with Mines Rescue in Australia and overseas, Kel competed in many Mines Rescue competitions, his first was in 1982 in the Hunter Valley. In 1989 he was selected to be part of the first Australin Surface Mines Rescue Team and competed at the International Surface Mines Rescue Competition in Gillette, Wyoming.
He brought an Indonesian team to Singleton in 1992 to compete in the 11th NSW Open Cut Mines Rescue Competition at Ravensworth Mine. After that, with the assistance of Jeff Simpkins from PT Freeport in Irian Jaya, he established the Indonesian Fire and Rescue Challenge in 1995. This year will see the 21st Challenge held with 24 teams competing over five days.
In 1998 he took an Indonesian team back to the International Surface Mines Rescue Competition in Wyoming.
Kel retired earlier this year; his last posting of eight years was at the McArthur River Mine in the Northern Territory.
Kel said he’s happy to have “pretty much” retired, spending more time with his family and his wife of 52 years.
“I think I’ve only been in the house for 25 of those years!”
He is very keen to use his spare time to guide young emergency responders living and working at as many remote mine sites as possible.
“Podcasting is all about reaching more people.”
Kel has released three episodes of Almost Unprecedented with another due out in the second week of October. His second series is already in the planning, ‘Almost Unprecedented: Your Stories’ where he will sit down with others in the industry and hear their stories. There is a third series in the works as well called ‘The First Five Minutes’.
| Listen to “Almost Unprecedented” wherever you get your podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or online. You can find photos and more detail on each of the podcast episodes here: https://www.theertcoach.com.au/ |
