May 20, 2024 • 48 mins
Embark on a riveting journey with our guest Anna Scheirlinck, whose life reads like an adventure novel, brimming with courage and a relentless drive to make a difference.
From academia to the frontlines of law enforcement and disaster relief, Anna's tale is not just one of career changes but of chasing the greater good, regardless of the terrain.
Her experiences stretch from the lecture halls of social policy to the dusty streets of Alice Springs, and from the earthquake-struck streets of Christchurch to the snowy peaks of New Zealand's mountain ranges. Anna's story is a testament to the human spirit's capability to adapt, serve, and lead in the most demanding circumstances.
My conversation with Anna isn't just about her past glories; it's a deep dive into the ethics of policing, the essence of community service in crisis, and the raw leadership honed in military and mountaineering feats. She unearths the nuances of serving as a constable in an outback town, the human connections that can evolve from disaster recovery, and the relentless physical and mental trials faced in both army training and alpine rescues.
Anna's narrative is a powerful reminder of the strength found in vulnerability, the leadership born out of service, and the adrenaline that fuels a life dedicated to surmounting both literal and figurative mountains.
As we conclude our episode, Anna's voice brings us into the heart of alpine search and rescue operations, where the stakes are as high as the peaks. With humility and raw honesty, she opens up about the support systems that uphold her and her team, the culture of debriefing that they rely on, and her dreams of scaling New Zealand's formidable 3,000-metre summits.
You can connect with Anna here.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
There's nothing as satisfying and exhilarating as
being able to use your skills,be part of an amazing team and
be there for somebody on theirbad day to get them out of
trouble.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Anna.
She was a lecturer in socialpolicy.
She was a constable in theNorthern Territory Police Force.
She was with New Zealand RedCross and assisted in the
Northern Territory Police Force.
She was with New Zealand RedCross and assisted in the
earthquake recovery.
She was an officer and alieutenant in the New Zealand
Army.
She's a ski guide.
She's a certified emergencymanager, she is a mountain
rescuer and she is now workingon a really interesting climate
(00:40):
tech startup.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
And that's a mission that we won some awards for in
terms of the Silver BraveryAward from the Royal Humane
Society, and at first it wasfunny because I thought what I'm
not brave?
I was just doing my job.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Obviously, you're clearly somebody who likes to
help people.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Hey everybody, it's Greg Sheehan.
Welcome to my podcast, whereyou will hear from a range of
guests, including those from thestartup world and those that
have had incredibly interestinglives and some stories to tell.
I would really appreciate it ifyou could hit the follow button
and share this amongst yourfriends, but, as you know, time
is limited, so let's get on withit and hear from our next guest
(01:22):
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So let's get on with it andhear from our next guest.
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Now back to the show.
My guest today is Anna Schelling.
Anna is somebody that wasintroduced to me by actually
somebody who does a lot ofintroductions to podcast guests,
and it's Janine Granger, thefounder of Easy Crypto in
(02:29):
Aotearoa, new Zealand.
And when Janine introduced meto Anna, she said, honestly, you
need to meet her because she'sjust so interesting.
And I'm just going to rattlethrough a few things about her.
Well, firstly, actually,welcome, anna.
I'm going to just say welcome.
I actually think otherwise.
If I go through all thesethings first, it's going to take
forever and I still won't haveintroduced you.
So here we go, anna.
(02:51):
She was a lecturer in socialpolicy.
She was a constable in theNorthern Territory Police Force.
She was with New Zealand RedCross and assisted in the
earthquake recovery.
She was an officer and alieutenant in the New Zealand
Army.
She's a earthquake recovery.
She was an officer and alieutenant in the New Zealand
Army.
She's a ski guide.
She's a certified emergencymanager.
She is a mountain rescuer and Ican't wait to kind of get into
(03:13):
that and she is now working on,in Janine's words, a really
interesting climate tech startup.
So yeah, anna, it's really,really cool having you on the
show.
I honestly don't know where tostart with somebody like you,
because you've done so manythings, how about we start with
the Northern Territory Police?
You sound like a Kiwi.
How did you end up as aNorthern Territory Police
(03:36):
officer?
Speaker 1 (03:37):
That's an interesting story actually.
I've grown up in Aotearoa allmy life and in my early 20s I
was looking for somethinginteresting in terms of a career
and I started looking at thepolice force and at the time in
New Zealand the police forcethey were not recruiting a whole
lot of people.
I went through the process andgot through and they said, oh
(04:00):
yep, two years and then you cancome to, yeah, police college.
And I thought two years I'm inmy early 20s, that's far too
long for me to wait.
So, yeah, kept it over toAustralia and within months of
applying for the NorthernTerritory Police Force I was
accepted and went to policecollege in Darwin.
(04:21):
So yeah, that was quite theexperience.
Bit of a culture shock, thought.
Australia was just like NewZealand but slightly different,
but it was actually quitedifferent.
And then I got deployed toAlice Springs.
So right in the heart ofAustralia was my first station
as a constable, which was veryeye-opening.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
It's just extreme.
So why Northern Territory?
Did you apply to all thedifferent state police forces
and then see which one you couldget into the fastest?
What motivated that one?
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah, there's a lot of bit of impatience to it.
And yeah, I did a bit ofresearch, looked at a couple.
I got accepted into WesternAustralia as well but did a
quick trip over to Darwin andthe landscape, the adventure,
the remoteness of it was quiteattractive to me.
So I thought let's grab it bythe horns and jump on and Alice
(05:12):
Springs.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
That must have been a pretty extreme place to be A
police officer.
I don't know a lot about AliceSprings, but I can imagine that
crime is a big problem in AliceSprings.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yeah, alice Springs, to be fair, was the big culture
shock for me.
It's a part of Australia that'snot viewed by many people
outside of Australia.
I'd say there's a lot of issuesin the social context there.
It was really sad in a way tosee all of that upfront and
personal and really for somebodywho wears their heart on their
(05:46):
sleeve a little bit, it wasquite confronting.
I'd say but yeah, I went for anadventure and I sure got that.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
So you were in your early 20s or mid-20s or whatever
at this point just huge cultureshock.
How did you deal with that atsuch a young age, or was that
almost you know that was thepurpose of it.
Was to have that culture shock.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I think the purpose of it.
I wanted to get outside mycomfort zone.
I had done a little bit oftraveling overseas and countries
some different yeah kind oflanguage and history than New
Zealand, but I didn't expect tofind so much, such a diversity
within the centre of Australiaand for me, it really shook me
(06:31):
up in terms of my grounding formy ethics and thinking about.
You know, what do I value?
What's most important to me?
Racism is a very real and rawissue there and seeing how that
was being handled was quitescary and I had to really, yeah,
take a stand on many situationswhere it felt like the
institutions were onlyreinforcing the legacy of racism
(06:52):
in a way.
That was quite confronting forme.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
And that must have been exceptionally confronting
and challenging because you areworking for one of the
authorities, so your colleagues,potentially what's viewed as
okay, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yeah, it definitely had me on the line.
I, you know, would be watchinga colleague and they would
approach things with a cynicismand a sort of institutional, I
guess, violence, not necessarilyalways physical, but very much
present in terms of how wecontrol people that we don't
(07:29):
understand or don't like or havedifferent ways of doing things
in their lives.
And the town camps around AliceSprings were the most
eye-opening part for me.
It was like people wanted toput the undesirables outside of
the town and keep them at arm'slength, and as long as they were
(07:52):
at arm's length, then peoplewere happy.
And that's what really scaredme.
I didn't really want to be partof reinforcing that social
context.
So I, yeah, after a while Irealized I couldn't just be
another cog in the wheel and Ineeded to move on and I was
craving coming back to NewZealand.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah, I can imagine just the culture shock of going
into a place like that, wherealcoholism is a problem, clearly
racism is a problem, and yetworking for the authority to
maintain order, your own ownsenses, your sense of what's
right, what's wrong and yourmoral values coming up against
how you were trained and how youwere shown how to deal with.
(08:33):
You know some of these people.
Plus, it's hot, it's dry, it'sbarren and it's not green.
Old New Zealand Aotearoa, youknow so it would have been
really confronting.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Yeah for sure.
And you go into the policeforce.
I imagine many people go inwith the ideals of you know, I
want to keep people safe, I wantto protect my community, I want
to, yeah, do my best by thecountry that I'm living in and
all these ideals that you go inwith.
And there's a bit of a naivetyto it, I realised.
And there's a bit of a naivetyto it, I realised, when there's
(09:10):
also a part where you're havingto reinforce social institutions
and sometimes, of course, Iwant to keep people safe and the
first thing that I need to dois prevent more harm happening,
and sometimes that requires theuse of force or taking people
away from those situations.
But at the same time, moreneeds to be done and that's the
difficult part to stay amongstis that there's just because
(09:34):
I've locked somebody up doesn'tactually change the social
situation in their community.
A really raw and difficultthing for me to grasp early on
in my career, but I think hasmade me who I am and taken me to
different places.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
So where did you go after that?
Did you come home?
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah, so I moved into the I guess, the softer side of
helping and supportingcommunities and I.
This was shortly after theChristchurch earthquakes, so I
got a job with Red Cross inChristchurch as a team leader
with the Earthquake RecoveryProgram.
So that was very much aboutcommunity outreach and finding
(10:18):
the people that hadn't hadconnections with social services
or organisations or who wereleft vulnerable and in need
following the quakes, and so myjob was to connect with them and
to provide some of the supportthat Red Cross was offering at
the time through grants andother initiatives that we ran,
(10:40):
but also to connect them withother services in the community
or networks, or even just helpthem link in with some local
community groups that could helpthem stay connected.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
And are you a Cantabrian Like, was this going
home?
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah, I was born in Otatahi but I hadn't lived here
much as an adult.
But I spent my life trying toreturn and now I'm back.
I'm very content I spent mylife trying to return and now
I'm back.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
I'm very content and just for those listening from
outside of New Zealand, otatahiis the Māori word for
Christchurch, and Cantabrian isthe province that Christchurch
is in.
So you come home and you dothat, did that sort of push all
your buttons?
It satisfied what you werelooking to do, because obviously
you're clearly somebody wholikes to help people.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah, yeah, no, that was great at the time.
I really enjoyed it.
I worked with an amazing teamand I had about between 40 to 60
volunteers who would just comethrough and walk the streets and
connect with people in theregions that we were working in.
They were able to see thekinder side of humanity, which
I'd been missing out on a littlebit in the police force.
(11:46):
So that was refreshing for thattime and I really enjoyed being
able to work alongside theHuman Rights Commission, a
project where we investigatedthe effects of red zoning of
houses across Christchurch afterthe earthquakes, because they
deemed certain areas to beunsafe or not suitable for
(12:09):
habitation.
So, yeah, it was really cool tobe on the grassroots again, but
I guess on another side of itfrom policing.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Absolutely something that's much more for the soul.
And then, was it from therethat you jumped into the Army,
or had you already had aninvolvement with the New Zealand
Army?
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, in the New Zealand Army I joined the
reserves or the territorialforce when I was at university
actually.
So I was studying a Bachelor ofSocial Work and I was looking
at my options for the summer andsomehow I came across an army
advertisement and thought that'sme running around in the bush
(12:49):
learning some new skills andgoing down the opposite pathway
to learn some leadership skillswas quite attractive to me.
So I thought that's a great wayto spend my university holidays
.
So I joined at the time andthat became quite an amazing
side career for me over theyears, which evolved into a
(13:10):
full-time job with the ArmyLeadership Centre after I was at
Red Cross.
So, yeah, the Army has alwaysbeen close to my heart.
I've met a lot of amazingpeople through that.
The training that I receivedthere was, I would say,
life-changing and phenomenal interms of the leadership training
and the skills that I learnedin what way is it around?
Speaker 2 (13:29):
you know the obvious things discipline, no purpose no
so the discipline side ofthings.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
I guess that's what everyone thinks of when they,
when they think of the island,being really strict and that
sort of thing.
Yes, that goes with it, butthat's by the by.
For me, it was the camaraderiethat, just the way that you look
after and you look out for thepeople that are next to you.
It was so strong and I reallyappreciated that and I've never
(13:58):
found it to be so stronganywhere else over my career
that you knew that, whateverhappened, that you have the back
of the person next to you andthey have your back, and that
was yeah, that was reallyspecial.
I also learnt so much aboutleadership and sometimes and I
guess this goes throughout mycareer is what I've learnt
(14:23):
hasn't always been by having anamazing leader or anybody
standing up the front andspouting out a few leadership
slogans or something like that.
It's often been by having areally bad leader and and then
just getting inquisitive aboutit and thinking what is it about
them that's so hard for me tounderstand them?
(14:45):
Or want to do what they'retelling us to do, or why does
nobody like them?
And does that matter whenyou're trying to be a leader and
get people to do things that?
they don't actually want to doanyway.
So, yeah, I think a lot of itwas a mixture.
I came across a couple ofamazing leaders in my time, but
I also came across a few and Ithought note to self for a
(15:05):
couple of amazing leaders in mytime, but I also came across a
few and I thought note to selffor future, when I'm in that
position.
Don't be like that.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
It's super interesting because I actually
say to my kids and I remind themof this quite a lot they're
adults now, but leaders havefollowers and if you don't have
followers then you might thinkyou're a leader but you're
clearly not leading becausenobody wants to follow you.
So you know, being able to knowwhat that means, and actually
(15:32):
there is probably no greaterexample than when battles
involved and you know some sortof military type thing, that
leadership is just so critical.
So are you still in the NewZealand Army?
Are you still connected to that?
Speaker 1 (15:45):
I'm very lessly connected.
I'm on a general reserve listnow but I'm not in active
service at the moment.
But yeah, as I said, the peoplethat I met, especially in my
early days of training.
You go through a lot of shittogether and that's
unforgettable.
That helps you build strongbonds, yeah those friendships.
Yeah, it's irreplaceableable.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
So I have a lot of friends now who, yeah, I went
through training with in thearmy and that's priceless and
what are some of the crazieststories of your time in the army
, whether it was training,whether it was things that you
maybe you can talk about, asopposed to things you can't talk
about, any kind of cool thingsthat stand out.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Yeah, I mean, there was plenty of sleepless nights
where they're, I guess,simulating a battle scenario and
trying to get you into thatsituation so that you can
respond yeah, how you're meantto respond.
And I remember one night wewere doing some training and I
was so short on sleep that Ijust, I remember one night we
(16:47):
were doing some training and Iwas so short on sleep that I
just started seeing like littleleprechauns and gremlins coming
out in the dark and yeah,hallucinating out of pure
tiredness and fatigue and yeah,and then I just come in and out
of awareness.
But, yeah, definitely somesituations where you got pushed
(17:07):
right to the limits and realized, wow, there it is, I found it.
And now I know what I need todo to try and avoid that next
time because, yeah, when thingsreally do get tough, you don't
want to be seeing gremlins andlike.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
It's not ideal, particularly in a military
context.
I always remember hearing astory from a mate of mine who
was doing some sort of trainingin the New Zealand Army and he
was somewhere up in Waiouru andup by the desert road there.
And he was saying and I don'tknow if this is true, but part
of training I don't know whetherit's everybody gets trained
like this is you have to escape,you're given a certain amount
(17:43):
of time and you have tobasically not be tracked down,
and so there's dogs released totry and find you and vehicles
released to try and find you,and your job is not to get
caught.
Did you go through anythinglike that?
Speaker 1 (17:56):
I didn't get to play that game.
That sounds like a lot of fun,but at least I guess the dog
catches me.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Yeah it's not good.
I think the dog would probablyjust hopefully just lick you and
then roll over, and you know,it's all about not getting
caught.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Yeah, no, I definitely was aware of some of
those activities.
Yeah, there was all sorts.
It's like another world.
And yeah, I spent a fair amountof time in my summers in Wairu
in the heat and the cold, andyeah, it becomes quite a special
and memorable place in theheart of New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, and then, what about this sort of this link
through to the mountains?
So, as a ski guide, as analpine rescuer, how did you get
involved with something likethat?
Was that through your time inthe army, or was it through you
know, something that you enjoyeddoing as a child Like?
What was the connection there?
Speaker 1 (18:45):
I had started rock climbing with a few friends when
I was living in Auckland andwhen I was in the army.
I really wanted to do aleadership course and it so
happened that these leadershipcourses were well, this one was
run in the mountains, and so wewent mountaineering for a week
and we did it in Arthur's Pass,which is Canterbury region, just
inland from Christchurch, andit's basically this valley with
(19:10):
peaks that shoot up either sidefrom it.
So to get to the top of anypeak, you basically head
straight uphill for a goodthousand plus meters, and that
was my intro to mountaineering.
Every day we went out and weclimbed a new mountain and I
just remember my calves wereburning.
I went through all thesedifferent emotions with the
people I was with, because youhave highs and lows and moments
(19:34):
of fatigue and moments ofirritation.
And then, yeah, we did a lot ofself-assessment in terms of how
do we perform as a team and asindividuals, and that really
opened up to me, bothmountaineering, adventuring and
that whole side of, I guess,leadership under pressure, and I
(19:55):
wanted to do more of that.
I latched on to a couple ofpeople who said here's the
pathway, here's how to get there.
Get yourself a couple ofqualifications.
So I went out and got those onmy own, just went rock climbing
and learned how to teach it.
And, yeah, ever grateful forthe people that sort of just
walked along me and gave me afew tips along the way of how to
(20:16):
tie a better knot or how to usebetter protection when I was
climbing or little things likethat, and that really got me
into climbing.
And then I just took off andeverywhere I went I wanted to go
rock climbing, mountaineering,and then the skiing came and I
mean, who wouldn't want to skidown instead of walk down the
(20:36):
mountain?
So it got me and, yeah, then Ibecame an assistant ski guide
with the New Zealand MountainGuides.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
With the skiing down?
I mean, this is the dumbquestion, but presumably to ski
down you have to have your skigear, so you've got to climb up
with the ski gear.
That must make the climb a lotharder, or not so much.
What's the feels harder?
Speaker 1 (20:56):
So, yeah, yeah, you work for it, but nothing's worth
it if you're not really workingfor it, right?
Yeah, and so I would.
Sometimes you hike up with yourskis on your back, and other
times you put skins on thebottom of your skis and then you
can move up with those.
They basically give youfriction going uphill.
But, yeah, as soon as you're onskis, it just feels like a lot
(21:20):
of fun to me.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
And do you go?
You know, other than the rescuesituations which we'll get into
shortly, do you go up withothers?
Obviously, it's safer to go upwith other people, and so you're
doing a climb together and thenyou ski down together.
Is that essentially how itworks when you're just out there
for fun?
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Yeah, and I always go back country skiing with other
people.
Yeah, it is much safer.
Nobody can hear you if you'reby yourself and you get hurt.
So, yeah, we go out and we'llclimb a peak and then ski down
it, and now I teach people to dothe same or guide people in
those situations.
I was ski guiding in Februaryearlier this year in Canada, so
(22:04):
that was my first time actuallyskiing in Canada.
It was a lot of fun, someglaciated skiing, and I'd
totally love to go back thereand do some more guiding.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Have you had situations where you almost felt
like you may need rescueservices yourself, where you've
been up there and it's actuallybeen a bit sketchy.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Oh yeah, I have had a situation actually where I
pulled a PLB, which is a personlocated with Beacon and I was
with Brent and he cartwheeledwearing his crampons.
We were coming down from anattempt on Mount Cook.
He took a bad fall, severelysprained both ankles and we had
(22:41):
some really difficult terrainover the Tasman Glacier to
travel.
There was no way we were goingto be able to crawl over that
with his broken feet.
So, yeah, I pulled a PLB andthe Aureki Mount Cook rescue
team came in with a helicopterand took us out.
So I've been on the other endof a rescue as well, which I
(23:03):
think more than anything makesme appreciate it so much and
want to do the best by thepeople that call for help when
they need it.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
And so did you not, obviously, on that ascent, but
you've climbed Mount Cook beforeMount Aoraki.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
I haven't actually made it up to the summit yet.
They're still on my to-do listthe goal yeah, yeah, I've had a
couple of attempts and part ofliving a long time while you're
climbing mountains is knowingwhen to turn around and come
back, and so a couple ofsituations where I've had to go
ended up turning around becausethe weather or the avalanche
(23:39):
conditions went right, and so Iknew that the mountain will be
there another day you that themountain will be there another
day?
Speaker 2 (23:50):
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Is that, mentally, really atough choice to make?
(24:33):
Or you've gone that far andit's been hard work to get that
far?
It must be tempting at times togo.
I don't really want to have tocome back and do this all over
again.
It must be tempting to push on,albeit that that might not be a
great choice yeah, yeah, summitfever is is real okay, that's
what they call it, summit fit.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yeah, I can see why yeah, you've already sunk a lot
of your energy into it.
So, just like you see it as asunk cost and and you want to
keep going and make the most ofit, you've given up your days,
the cost of getting there.
You found a friend to do itwith.
There's so many things to lineup to make it all happen, so it
(25:15):
is really hard when you need toturn around and try another time
, which may be months or evenyears away.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And what about you as a rescuer?
So how did you get into that?
I can see why you would want to, because there's this
confluence of things you loveand the sense of adventure.
But how did that get startedwith you becoming an official
rescuer?
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Yeah, so generally with search and rescue, they
take people on for thespecialist teams who have
existing personal experience andskills in that pursuit.
So I was a climber, I was amountaineer, I'd been
instructing and guiding and,yeah, I put my hand up to join
the team.
There was a bit of aprobationary period where they
(25:57):
suss you out and make sure thatyou have all the skills that
they're looking for.
And then, essentially, yeah,you go through a bit of a
training program with search andrescue.
And then, essentially, yeah,you go through a bit of a
training program with search andrescue.
You learn how to search forpeople, different search
techniques.
You learn how to operate safelyaround helicopters and aircraft
.
You learn how to do a lot offirst aid and medical support,
(26:20):
because you may be with apatient for quite a while before
the paramedics can arrive, yeah, and then learning how to move
people in really difficultterrain.
So we're moving patients withany sort of injury or condition
and you're at altitude andyou're in a steep area and it
(26:40):
may be snowy or icy or justrocky.
So, yeah, there's a lot tofigure out.
And so, yeah, the training,it's ongoing.
I'm always learning new ways ofdoing things and our team is
always like improving ourtechniques, learning from
international best practice oreven setting our own best
practice when we can see thatsomething works best in our area
(27:02):
.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
How often is a rescue Like I know?
Obviously they're not scheduled, but you know, like, on average
, are you out there like everyweekend.
Are you out there everyWednesday?
You know, like is it a weeklything.
How often roughly, do you haveto head up into the mountains?
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Yeah, you're right, they're very sporadic.
Sometimes you might get two ina week, other times we may not
get one for a few months.
But with my team that's thealpine rescue canterbury team we
cover the canterbury regionalongside our akimat cook team
and we would get a job for ourteam on average about once every
(27:38):
month or two.
Yeah, and these are the jobswhich are too technical or the
conditions are too serious ordangerous for the land search
and rescue ground teams to gointo.
So the police or the rescuecoordination centre will call us
up and ask us to head on in andwe go prepared to perhaps stay
(28:00):
out there for 24 hours.
There's always an unknownfactor Sometimes we get dropped
off by the heli and we don'tknow if they're going to be able
to pick us back up.
So we have to go and preparefor all circumstances to both
look after ourselves and thepeople that have called for help
.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
So what does that look like?
Do you get a littlenotification that comes through
on your phone, a phone call orwhatever, and then you suddenly
have to, you know, head out tocatch a helicopter, or how does
that work?
Speaker 1 (28:32):
it's sort of very international rescue sounding,
it's like yeah, yeah sometimesit feels a little bit like that
yeah, we get a phone callessentially comes through, and
then our team communicates witheach other around who's heading
up.
But yeah, basically it's.
Then we drive to the aircrafthangar, jump on maybe the
(28:53):
Westpac heli or another rescuehelicopter and, yeah, within an
hour we can be flying over thesouthern alps of New Zealand and
looking for the person who'scalled for help.
Yeah, it's quite surreal whenyou're working in an office in
the afternoon and then nextminute an hour later you're
(29:14):
flying over a two and a halfthousand meter peak in the snow
and sunset looking for somebodywho's injured themselves.
Yeah, sometimes you're going topinch yourself.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
It's actually, it's crazy, and presumably there must
be some situations where it'sgone off and you're out for a
drink or something withcolleagues and you presumably at
that point have to go look, Ihave to tap out here.
I'm not going to be able to doit, or do you go on call like
how does that work?
Speaker 1 (29:40):
yeah, we have a bit of a cool roster system but,
yeah, there's definitely timeswhere you have to say I'm unav,
unavailable today.
Somebody else is going to haveto take it up.
So we've got a good team toshare it around with.
I mean, there's 16 of us at themoment in the
Christchurch-based team and weshare it around.
We have an encore roster so weknow how many people we have
available.
And then it means that we canat least have our fast response
(30:02):
team head out.
That's two members to startwith, and then we build it up as
it gets more complex ordifficult or prolonged.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
And do you keep all your gear at home or is it all
out at the airport or whathappens there?
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yeah, that's interesting.
It's something that we've beenlooking to change and improve on
as we professionalise the team.
So now we keep it all out atthe airport.
We used to have it at home, butyou can imagine getting the
call up and then you're huntingaround your garage looking for
all the bits and pieces that youneed, and then some of it you
used for your own adventure inthe weekend.
(30:36):
So it's drying out on the line,not what you want to be doing
when somebody is.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yeah it's life or death.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Yeah, yeah yeah, so yeah, we've been able to,
through like really generousfunding and grants, slowly build
up the equipment we need andall of the gear, so that the
dream was and becoming a realityis, that we can turn up in your
shorts and your t-shirt at theheli hanger and all the gear is
there.
(31:02):
So next minute you're dressedup, ready to go into freezing
conditions on on the top of themountain and safely yeah execute
what needs to be done.
Do you get scared?
Speaker 2 (31:13):
no.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
I don't get scared and this is an interesting one,
because I think not many peoplewould admit they're coming to
scared if they're a rescuer butthere's certainly moments where
my heart beats quite quickly.
There's quite a lot ofadrenaline going because
everything's you know the heli'swearing up, you've got all your
gear on, you've got seconds tomake decisions.
(31:35):
So, yeah, you certainly have tocalm down and start thinking
quite logically.
We put things in placechecklists so that you don't
forget anything and so that youcan make really sound decisions,
because, yes, some of thosedecisions are life and death.
Sometimes we're puttingourselves in a potentially
(31:55):
dangerous situation it could beavalanche conditions or poor
weather, so we need to make somereally big decisions quite fast
, compared to when you're goingout on your own adventure.
So, yeah, that's something thatsort of really engages my mind
and I enjoy that to an extent.
(32:16):
But, yeah, sometimes I wouldsay I get a little bit nervous
for sure.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
So there must be times where and I'm guessing a
lot of times where there arejust simply conditions or
factors that you need to bringinto the equation that are
completely outside yourcollective control, like weather
or access or avalanche, and youare then having to make a
decision that's not optimal theweather's, it's foggy or it's
(32:43):
raining or whatever and thenyou're having to make a
literally a life and deathdecision around some of those
things.
Has that helped you sort oflook at making decisions outside
of Alpine Rescue just in yourgeneral everyday life and make
it seem a little bit easier tohandle big stuff when you can't
really control everything?
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah, it certainly does put things into context and
helps me to go through a few ofthe same processes.
That it may not be the hollyblades are wearing up and the
weather is turning, but I may bein a situation where a client
needs something tomorrow andeverything is just broken.
(33:23):
So what are we going to do?
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, exactly, is just broken.
So what are we going to do?
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And so when you get into thesesituations, you're in the, in
the mountain.
You must have had some timeswhere you've just had some
really good outcomes, and thenthere's been other times where
maybe it hasn't been good.
Any stories around those, thosesorts of things yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
It's a real highs and lows like the optimal highs and
lows like the optimal highs andthe optimal lows.
There's nothing as satisfyingand exhilarating as being able
to use your skills, be part ofan amazing team and be there for
somebody on their bad day toget them out of trouble.
That's super rewarding in and ofitself.
(34:03):
On the other end of that yeah,there's, the reality is
sometimes, by the time we getthe call, the person who's in
trouble has already passed away,or yeah, or this situation ends
up and they have a permanentdisability or even psychological
trauma from the event, and sothose situations are so much
(34:27):
harder to navigate.
It takes a real team to dealwith that.
We're such a small community inthe climbing and mountaineering
community in New Zealand, sothere's many a time when we know
the people that we'reresponding to on the mountains
or somebody knows them.
So, yeah, there's a huge amountto to navigate together and it
(34:49):
takes a lot of support and careamongst the team for each other
as well as really for the forthe people we're going up to
help, and often their familiesreach out to us or their friends
after an event as well.
Yeah, that's, it can be quitegut-wrenching to be true, and
how do you deal with that?
Speaker 2 (35:09):
are you given counseling?
Do you share amongst the team?
How do you process that?
Speaker 1 (35:15):
lots of ways we support each other but from
counseling from an externalprovider through to talking it
through, we do a team debriefafter every single rescue, no
matter how well or otherwise itwent.
We will be there for each other.
We have a real honesty cultureso you can call out anything
(35:37):
that you thought was unsafe orjust, yeah, not best practice.
Essentially and yeah, we don'ttake it personally it's all
about learning together and thenalso being there for each other
when things go really, reallybadly for the person that we've
responded to.
Yeah, we have group counsellingavailable as well and it needs
(36:01):
to be ongoing because thesethings, you know, will pop up
three weeks down the line, threemonths down the line, even
years down the line.
It's not unusual for such a Iguess it's not unusual for such
a I guess a big, excitable sortof situation to become quite
traumatic for people over time.
So we also give people time todeal with that and there's no
(36:22):
pressure to jump back on thenext job.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Yeah, is there a command structure on the
mountain?
So, in terms of with the rescueteam, is there a clear this
person is the boss and thenthese people are subordinate to
that.
Yeah, it's a pretty flatstructure.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
You know you may be working just around the corner
of a bluff from your teammateand you just need to be able to
trust each other.
And it's more than anything.
It's a really high trustenvironment.
The pilot has to be able totrust us because they're sending
us down on a winch, which meansthat essentially, at some point
we're attached.
You know, we're on the groundand we're attached to the
(37:01):
helicopter and there's a lot oftrust in that.
There's the winch operator.
They have to trust us thatwe're not going to attach
ourselves onto something thatcould be dangerous.
Yeah, so there's a whole lot oftrust going on.
So, whilst we do appoint afield team leader, that's
basically just for the ease ofmaking decisions, so that they
(37:22):
can make the final call onthings.
But yeah, it's similar in somerespects to the Army and the
camaraderie that I felt there,that you know that each person
is very good at what they'redoing and they are looking out
for everybody else's safety aswell as for their own.
That's critical to a well-oiledoperation.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
And so then you get off the mountain and you do some
sort of debrief and look at youknow what could we have done
better?
And are pretty open aboutfeedback about something that
wasn't done well or could beimproved.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, I really encourage that in the team, like
I just encourage people tothrow their egos out the window
and I have to, I guess, exhibitthat by taking leadership and
owning.
When there are things that Icould have done better and I can
see that somebody else maybring it up, and there's always
something.
As much as we like to thinkwe're very good at what we do
(38:18):
and we are, there's alwayssomething we can refine for next
time.
And, because these situationsare so unique, there's no rescue
that ever looks like the lastone.
There's always somethingdifferent.
Whether it's the people we'repicking up the injury one,
there's always somethingdifferent.
Whether it's the people wherewe're picking up the injury the
weather, the snow conditionsyeah, so it's it's just so much
to learn and deal with everytime.
(38:38):
And we also debrief with theheli crew as well, and if the
police ran the operation, we'lldebrief with them, so that
there's a line of, yeah,accountability and learning
throughout that.
Yeah, and I really appreciatethat we just own it.
Yes, that's something I coulddo better.
And if it's something I coulddo better, then probably
something other people in theteam could learn from as well.
(39:01):
And so, sharing thoseexperiences amongst the team and
saying, hey, yeah, I could haveattached this better last, and
then everybody else learns fromit.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
So and I think there's some learnings there
that parallel across into thebusiness world as well, because
you know you're in an extremeenvironment, but you're also in
a high performance environmentand so in that environment it's
okay to be able to give feedback, honest feedback.
That wasn't good enough.
What could we do about that?
And yet we feel like in a workcontext it's you know, it's oh.
(39:34):
I don't want the person to beupset if I give them that
feedback, yet it's so criticalin the environment you're in.
So what would be a reallymemorable rescue for you?
Speaker 1 (39:43):
that you look back and you think you know whether
it was a good outcome or a notso good outcome, something that
really was quite a memorableexperience for you yeah, for me
it was one of the first rescuesthat I took part in, and it
happens to be just me and oneother team member that deploy on
the helicopter into themountains that day.
(40:04):
There was two people who werestranded at the top of the
mountain.
There were some quite activeavalanches occurring around the
mountain and the weather lookedlike it was about to pack in for
the next five days, so not asituation where you want to tell
them to sit and wait it out onthe summit whilst they were
(40:26):
shivering in the snow.
So they had spent the nightthere and we managed to get into
them early morning.
It took quite a while to find away to access the mountain with
the helicopter, so they hadspent the night there and we
managed to get into them earlymorning.
It took quite a while to find away to access the mountain with
the helicopter.
We did a lot of circles at thebase of a glacier in the
helicopter and as I was lookingat the mat in the heli, I was
(40:47):
looking out the window, lookingat my mat, looking out the
window, looking at my mat, andthere was a lot of clouds
outside the window, and it wasmy first, I guess, experience in
doing so many rotations in theheli.
I instantly felt sick and I'dhad a cliff bar, a muesli bar or
half muesli bar for breakfastthat morning at, I think, 4am or
(41:08):
something.
And anyway, just five minutesbefore we're about to winch down
onto the glacier, I lose thecontents of my stomach inside
the heli.
So that happened, put my micback down and the pilot asked if
I was okay.
I said yep, no, we're fine,carry on.
(41:28):
I felt much better after thatand one minute later I was
winching down onto the glacier,ready to climb up to this peak
to rescue a couple of people.
I must say that it's one of themost humbling experiences I
have ever had, and the poor helicrew had to clean it up later
(41:49):
on.
Anyway, I headed up the glacierwith my colleague.
We climbed up it took us acouple of hours to get to,
because it was quite misty andfoggy and rainy to get to where
these two people were.
They were huddling inside a icecave that they dug out with
their ice axes, and then they'dslept in during the night on top
(42:10):
of a rope.
So they were, fair to be said,quite cold, in a sort of mildly
hypothermic condition andcompletely disoriented as to how
to get out of there, and veryfatigued as well.
So we guided them down thesummit, across, back, across the
glacier, only to be told thatthe heli wasn't able to come
(42:31):
back for us because they'd beencalled on another mission and so
we were going to have to wait.
But we could see the cloudrolling up the valley and we
were so worried.
Is this cloud going to preventus getting picked up?
Because if it does, we've got agood seven hour hike back up
over the mountain and throughterrain that I had to assess for
(42:54):
avalanches and then out to thevalley floor.
So doing that with two veryfatigued and mildly hypothermic
people was going to be quite amission.
After a full day out already,by this time we're drenched to
the bone.
Your waterproofs only staywaterproof for so long, and we
dug a snow pit and set ourpatients inside of it to keep
(43:17):
them warm.
At least we had a turnaroundtime.
We said 5.30, that's it, we'regoing to have to go.
If the heli can't make it hereby then, that's it, we're going.
We were so lucky At 5.30,.
I'm looking at my watch.
I'm telling my colleague okay,radio in, we've got to go.
We've got to climb back up,over and out.
(43:38):
Don't want to do this, butthat's our safety time and we've
got to stick to it.
And I turned around and saw aclearing in the cloud, so jumped
on the radio and told the pilotback up, come back up.
I heard the blades whirring inthe distance and they started
(43:59):
coming back up to us.
I had a mouthful of coffee leftin the thermos which we'd saved
so that we could throw it allover the snow to give it some
definition.
And as soon as the heli camewithin sight, we threw our
coffee all over the snow so thatthey could see where to hover.
And we proceeded to jump intothe heli with more of a belly
(44:21):
plant because still wearingcrampons at the time.
So that was one of those realclose calls and just a real
success at the end of the day.
But we worked for it and it wasquite memorable and that's,
yeah, a mission that we won someawards for in terms of the
(44:41):
silver bravery award from yesfrom the royal humane society
and at first it was funnybecause I thought what I'm not
brave, I was just doing job.
But I realised there was quite afew moments throughout that
where yeah, a little bit nervous.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
It was sketchy, it was, yeah, it was touch and go,
probably Uncomfortable, yeah,and the family members of those
involved, let alone thoseinvolved, must have just been so
incredibly appreciative of youputting your own life on the
line.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
It's awesome to be able to help people.
I feel very lucky.
It's really insane, I mean, forthose listening.
This is an audio only podcast.
You can't see how wide my mouthis open just listening to that
story, because actually one ofthe things I'm intrigued about
is so in 2024, for thehelicopter to find you, you have
to throw coffee on the snow.
There's no like bettertechnical solution than that
coffee on the snow.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
There's no like better technical solution than
that.
Oh, that's funny there.
There are a few tricks outthere there's you can have a
spray paint and spray a highthis spray onto the snow.
I didn't happen to have any ofthat in my pack that day.
So yeah, the coffee it was, andit did a really good job.
It gave a lot of definitions,so the pilot was grateful
honestly, you are living such ahigh octane kind of life.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
So what now for you?
Obviously you're enjoying sortof alpine rescue.
Is there something that youreally want to tick off the
bucket list that maybe youhaven't done yet?
Well, that's a really goodquestion from an adventure point
of view, you know like it'ssomething that would really
challenge you.
It sounds pretty challenging.
For most people that's wayoutside their comfort zone, but
you must be getting kind offamiliar with that.
(46:17):
Like do you want to do like abig mountain climb?
Is there something like that inthere?
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Yeah, I'm really enjoying the New Zealand
mountains and I think I'd liketo work away at the 3,000-metre
peaks Not in any rush, I don'tneed to do them all at once, but
, yeah, I'd love to just keepclimbing those 3,000-metre peaks
.
They're quite diverse and theyall offer their own challenges,
so that's my dream over the nextdecade.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Yeah, that's just scary.
How many are there in NewZealand?
Must be about 10 or somethinglike that, maybe.
I think it's just scary.
How many are there in NewZealand?
Must be about 10 or somethinglike that, maybe.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
About 23.
Is it?
Speaker 2 (46:56):
23?
Because Cook or Aoraki is 3,400, something like that, and I
guess along the Southern Alpsthere's just a whole bunch of
them there.
Honestly, that is phenomenal.
Honestly, anna, you are aninspiration, because I think
there are people out there whowe all love our sort of nine to
(47:16):
five existences and working fromhome and going to the
supermarket and that sort ofthing, and yet you're out there
just doing some really crazythings and some extreme things
and, in the process, savingpeople's lives.
So you know, huge ups to you fordoing what you do, because it's
this most people wouldn't wantto do, that there's no way most
people want to help people.
(47:36):
There's no way that they wouldwant to go into alpine
conditions and put their life onthe line up in the mountains to
go and rescue others.
So thank you for the work thatyou do do in New Zealand for
those who do choose to go upinto the mountains and keeping
them safe.
It has been a huge honour tochat to you today and again, big
ups to Janine Granger for theintroduction.
(47:57):
She, like I said, she was just.
She couldn't speak highlyenough of you and the person you
are, the character you are andthe work that you're doing, so I
just really want to thank youfor your time today.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Thank you, greg, appreciate it, it's been fun.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
Hey, don't forget to check out Deskwork, the team
behind you, being able to buildhigh-performing offshore teams
for your startups and SMEs.
It's deskworkco.
Backslash, greg, and go andsave yourself some hard-earned
money.
There's nothing as satisfying and exhilarating as
being able to use your skills,be part of an amazing team and
be there for somebody on theirbad day to get them out of
trouble.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Anna.
She was a lecturer in socialpolicy.
She was a constable in theNorthern Territory Police Force.
She was with New Zealand RedCross and assisted in the
Northern Territory Police Force.
She was with New Zealand RedCross and assisted in the
earthquake recovery.
She was an officer and alieutenant in the New Zealand
Army.
She's a ski guide.
She's a certified emergencymanager, she is a mountain
rescuer and she is now workingon a really interesting climate
(00:40):
tech startup.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
And that's a mission that we won some awards for in
terms of the Silver BraveryAward from the Royal Humane
Society, and at first it wasfunny because I thought what I'm
not brave?
I was just doing my job.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Obviously, you're clearly somebody who likes to
help people.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Hey everybody, it's Greg Sheehan.
Welcome to my podcast, whereyou will hear from a range of
guests, including those from thestartup world and those that
have had incredibly interestinglives and some stories to tell.
I would really appreciate it ifyou could hit the follow button
and share this amongst yourfriends, but, as you know, time
is limited, so let's get on withit and hear from our next guest
(01:22):
minute.
So let's get on with it andhear from our next guest.
I want to tell you a little bitabout desk work.
Desk work is your offshoringoption.
If you want to save around 50%of your total headcount cost for
equivalent talent acrossaccounting, marketing, sales,
your operations or your admin,then check out desk work.
Honestly, if I was looking tostart an accounting firm again,
(01:46):
it would be a no-brainer for meto use Deskwork.
I've used offshoring teamsbefore in the past.
I got past my skepticism onbeing able to do it and it was
so phenomenally successful.
Go have a look at desk-workcobackslash, greg, and book
yourself a free discovery callto learn more about it.
(02:07):
Better still, mention my nameand get yourself some discounts.
Check it out.
Now back to the show.
My guest today is Anna Schelling.
Anna is somebody that wasintroduced to me by actually
somebody who does a lot ofintroductions to podcast guests,
and it's Janine Granger, thefounder of Easy Crypto in
(02:29):
Aotearoa, new Zealand.
And when Janine introduced meto Anna, she said, honestly, you
need to meet her because she'sjust so interesting.
And I'm just going to rattlethrough a few things about her.
Well, firstly, actually,welcome, anna.
I'm going to just say welcome.
I actually think otherwise.
If I go through all thesethings first, it's going to take
forever and I still won't haveintroduced you.
So here we go, anna.
(02:51):
She was a lecturer in socialpolicy.
She was a constable in theNorthern Territory Police Force.
She was with New Zealand RedCross and assisted in the
earthquake recovery.
She was an officer and alieutenant in the New Zealand
Army.
She's a earthquake recovery.
She was an officer and alieutenant in the New Zealand
Army.
She's a ski guide.
She's a certified emergencymanager.
She is a mountain rescuer and Ican't wait to kind of get into
(03:13):
that and she is now working on,in Janine's words, a really
interesting climate tech startup.
So yeah, anna, it's really,really cool having you on the
show.
I honestly don't know where tostart with somebody like you,
because you've done so manythings, how about we start with
the Northern Territory Police?
You sound like a Kiwi.
How did you end up as aNorthern Territory Police
(03:36):
officer?
Speaker 1 (03:37):
That's an interesting story actually.
I've grown up in Aotearoa allmy life and in my early 20s I
was looking for somethinginteresting in terms of a career
and I started looking at thepolice force and at the time in
New Zealand the police forcethey were not recruiting a whole
lot of people.
I went through the process andgot through and they said, oh
(04:00):
yep, two years and then you cancome to, yeah, police college.
And I thought two years I'm inmy early 20s, that's far too
long for me to wait.
So, yeah, kept it over toAustralia and within months of
applying for the NorthernTerritory Police Force I was
accepted and went to policecollege in Darwin.
(04:21):
So yeah, that was quite theexperience.
Bit of a culture shock, thought.
Australia was just like NewZealand but slightly different,
but it was actually quitedifferent.
And then I got deployed toAlice Springs.
So right in the heart ofAustralia was my first station
as a constable, which was veryeye-opening.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
It's just extreme.
So why Northern Territory?
Did you apply to all thedifferent state police forces
and then see which one you couldget into the fastest?
What motivated that one?
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah, there's a lot of bit of impatience to it.
And yeah, I did a bit ofresearch, looked at a couple.
I got accepted into WesternAustralia as well but did a
quick trip over to Darwin andthe landscape, the adventure,
the remoteness of it was quiteattractive to me.
So I thought let's grab it bythe horns and jump on and Alice
(05:12):
Springs.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
That must have been a pretty extreme place to be A
police officer.
I don't know a lot about AliceSprings, but I can imagine that
crime is a big problem in AliceSprings.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yeah, alice Springs, to be fair, was the big culture
shock for me.
It's a part of Australia that'snot viewed by many people
outside of Australia.
I'd say there's a lot of issuesin the social context there.
It was really sad in a way tosee all of that upfront and
personal and really for somebodywho wears their heart on their
(05:46):
sleeve a little bit, it wasquite confronting.
I'd say but yeah, I went for anadventure and I sure got that.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
So you were in your early 20s or mid-20s or whatever
at this point just huge cultureshock.
How did you deal with that atsuch a young age, or was that
almost you know that was thepurpose of it.
Was to have that culture shock.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I think the purpose of it.
I wanted to get outside mycomfort zone.
I had done a little bit oftraveling overseas and countries
some different yeah kind oflanguage and history than New
Zealand, but I didn't expect tofind so much, such a diversity
within the centre of Australiaand for me, it really shook me
(06:31):
up in terms of my grounding formy ethics and thinking about.
You know, what do I value?
What's most important to me?
Racism is a very real and rawissue there and seeing how that
was being handled was quitescary and I had to really, yeah,
take a stand on many situationswhere it felt like the
institutions were onlyreinforcing the legacy of racism
(06:52):
in a way.
That was quite confronting forme.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
And that must have been exceptionally confronting
and challenging because you areworking for one of the
authorities, so your colleagues,potentially what's viewed as
okay, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yeah, it definitely had me on the line.
I, you know, would be watchinga colleague and they would
approach things with a cynicismand a sort of institutional, I
guess, violence, not necessarilyalways physical, but very much
present in terms of how wecontrol people that we don't
(07:29):
understand or don't like or havedifferent ways of doing things
in their lives.
And the town camps around AliceSprings were the most
eye-opening part for me.
It was like people wanted toput the undesirables outside of
the town and keep them at arm'slength, and as long as they were
(07:52):
at arm's length, then peoplewere happy.
And that's what really scaredme.
I didn't really want to be partof reinforcing that social
context.
So I, yeah, after a while Irealized I couldn't just be
another cog in the wheel and Ineeded to move on and I was
craving coming back to NewZealand.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah, I can imagine just the culture shock of going
into a place like that, wherealcoholism is a problem, clearly
racism is a problem, and yetworking for the authority to
maintain order, your own ownsenses, your sense of what's
right, what's wrong and yourmoral values coming up against
how you were trained and how youwere shown how to deal with.
(08:33):
You know some of these people.
Plus, it's hot, it's dry, it'sbarren and it's not green.
Old New Zealand Aotearoa, youknow so it would have been
really confronting.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Yeah for sure.
And you go into the policeforce.
I imagine many people go inwith the ideals of you know, I
want to keep people safe, I wantto protect my community, I want
to, yeah, do my best by thecountry that I'm living in and
all these ideals that you go inwith.
And there's a bit of a naivetyto it, I realised.
And there's a bit of a naivetyto it, I realised, when there's
(09:10):
also a part where you're havingto reinforce social institutions
and sometimes, of course, Iwant to keep people safe and the
first thing that I need to dois prevent more harm happening,
and sometimes that requires theuse of force or taking people
away from those situations.
But at the same time, moreneeds to be done and that's the
difficult part to stay amongstis that there's just because
(09:34):
I've locked somebody up doesn'tactually change the social
situation in their community.
A really raw and difficultthing for me to grasp early on
in my career, but I think hasmade me who I am and taken me to
different places.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
So where did you go after that?
Did you come home?
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah, so I moved into the I guess, the softer side of
helping and supportingcommunities and I.
This was shortly after theChristchurch earthquakes, so I
got a job with Red Cross inChristchurch as a team leader
with the Earthquake RecoveryProgram.
So that was very much aboutcommunity outreach and finding
(10:18):
the people that hadn't hadconnections with social services
or organisations or who wereleft vulnerable and in need
following the quakes, and so myjob was to connect with them and
to provide some of the supportthat Red Cross was offering at
the time through grants andother initiatives that we ran,
(10:40):
but also to connect them withother services in the community
or networks, or even just helpthem link in with some local
community groups that could helpthem stay connected.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
And are you a Cantabrian Like, was this going
home?
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah, I was born in Otatahi but I hadn't lived here
much as an adult.
But I spent my life trying toreturn and now I'm back.
I'm very content I spent mylife trying to return and now
I'm back.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
I'm very content and just for those listening from
outside of New Zealand, otatahiis the Māori word for
Christchurch, and Cantabrian isthe province that Christchurch
is in.
So you come home and you dothat, did that sort of push all
your buttons?
It satisfied what you werelooking to do, because obviously
you're clearly somebody wholikes to help people.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah, yeah, no, that was great at the time.
I really enjoyed it.
I worked with an amazing teamand I had about between 40 to 60
volunteers who would just comethrough and walk the streets and
connect with people in theregions that we were working in.
They were able to see thekinder side of humanity, which
I'd been missing out on a littlebit in the police force.
(11:46):
So that was refreshing for thattime and I really enjoyed being
able to work alongside theHuman Rights Commission, a
project where we investigatedthe effects of red zoning of
houses across Christchurch afterthe earthquakes, because they
deemed certain areas to beunsafe or not suitable for
(12:09):
habitation.
So, yeah, it was really cool tobe on the grassroots again, but
I guess on another side of itfrom policing.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Absolutely something that's much more for the soul.
And then, was it from therethat you jumped into the Army,
or had you already had aninvolvement with the New Zealand
Army?
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, in the New Zealand Army I joined the
reserves or the territorialforce when I was at university
actually.
So I was studying a Bachelor ofSocial Work and I was looking
at my options for the summer andsomehow I came across an army
advertisement and thought that'sme running around in the bush
(12:49):
learning some new skills andgoing down the opposite pathway
to learn some leadership skillswas quite attractive to me.
So I thought that's a great wayto spend my university holidays
.
So I joined at the time andthat became quite an amazing
side career for me over theyears, which evolved into a
(13:10):
full-time job with the ArmyLeadership Centre after I was at
Red Cross.
So, yeah, the Army has alwaysbeen close to my heart.
I've met a lot of amazingpeople through that.
The training that I receivedthere was, I would say,
life-changing and phenomenal interms of the leadership training
and the skills that I learnedin what way is it around?
Speaker 2 (13:29):
you know the obvious things discipline, no purpose no
so the discipline side ofthings.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
I guess that's what everyone thinks of when they,
when they think of the island,being really strict and that
sort of thing.
Yes, that goes with it, butthat's by the by.
For me, it was the camaraderiethat, just the way that you look
after and you look out for thepeople that are next to you.
It was so strong and I reallyappreciated that and I've never
(13:58):
found it to be so stronganywhere else over my career
that you knew that, whateverhappened, that you have the back
of the person next to you andthey have your back, and that
was yeah, that was reallyspecial.
I also learnt so much aboutleadership and sometimes and I
guess this goes throughout mycareer is what I've learnt
(14:23):
hasn't always been by having anamazing leader or anybody
standing up the front andspouting out a few leadership
slogans or something like that.
It's often been by having areally bad leader and and then
just getting inquisitive aboutit and thinking what is it about
them that's so hard for me tounderstand them?
(14:45):
Or want to do what they'retelling us to do, or why does
nobody like them?
And does that matter whenyou're trying to be a leader and
get people to do things that?
they don't actually want to doanyway.
So, yeah, I think a lot of itwas a mixture.
I came across a couple ofamazing leaders in my time, but
I also came across a few and Ithought note to self for a
(15:05):
couple of amazing leaders in mytime, but I also came across a
few and I thought note to selffor future, when I'm in that
position.
Don't be like that.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
It's super interesting because I actually
say to my kids and I remind themof this quite a lot they're
adults now, but leaders havefollowers and if you don't have
followers then you might thinkyou're a leader but you're
clearly not leading becausenobody wants to follow you.
So you know, being able to knowwhat that means, and actually
(15:32):
there is probably no greaterexample than when battles
involved and you know some sortof military type thing, that
leadership is just so critical.
So are you still in the NewZealand Army?
Are you still connected to that?
Speaker 1 (15:45):
I'm very lessly connected.
I'm on a general reserve listnow but I'm not in active
service at the moment.
But yeah, as I said, the peoplethat I met, especially in my
early days of training.
You go through a lot of shittogether and that's
unforgettable.
That helps you build strongbonds, yeah those friendships.
Yeah, it's irreplaceableable.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
So I have a lot of friends now who, yeah, I went
through training with in thearmy and that's priceless and
what are some of the crazieststories of your time in the army
, whether it was training,whether it was things that you
maybe you can talk about, asopposed to things you can't talk
about, any kind of cool thingsthat stand out.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Yeah, I mean, there was plenty of sleepless nights
where they're, I guess,simulating a battle scenario and
trying to get you into thatsituation so that you can
respond yeah, how you're meantto respond.
And I remember one night wewere doing some training and I
was so short on sleep that Ijust, I remember one night we
(16:47):
were doing some training and Iwas so short on sleep that I
just started seeing like littleleprechauns and gremlins coming
out in the dark and yeah,hallucinating out of pure
tiredness and fatigue and yeah,and then I just come in and out
of awareness.
But, yeah, definitely somesituations where you got pushed
(17:07):
right to the limits and realized, wow, there it is, I found it.
And now I know what I need todo to try and avoid that next
time because, yeah, when thingsreally do get tough, you don't
want to be seeing gremlins andlike.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
It's not ideal, particularly in a military
context.
I always remember hearing astory from a mate of mine who
was doing some sort of trainingin the New Zealand Army and he
was somewhere up in Waiouru andup by the desert road there.
And he was saying and I don'tknow if this is true, but part
of training I don't know whetherit's everybody gets trained
like this is you have to escape,you're given a certain amount
(17:43):
of time and you have tobasically not be tracked down,
and so there's dogs released totry and find you and vehicles
released to try and find you,and your job is not to get
caught.
Did you go through anythinglike that?
Speaker 1 (17:56):
I didn't get to play that game.
That sounds like a lot of fun,but at least I guess the dog
catches me.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Yeah it's not good.
I think the dog would probablyjust hopefully just lick you and
then roll over, and you know,it's all about not getting
caught.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Yeah, no, I definitely was aware of some of
those activities.
Yeah, there was all sorts.
It's like another world.
And yeah, I spent a fair amountof time in my summers in Wairu
in the heat and the cold, andyeah, it becomes quite a special
and memorable place in theheart of New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, and then, what about this sort of this link
through to the mountains?
So, as a ski guide, as analpine rescuer, how did you get
involved with something likethat?
Was that through your time inthe army, or was it through you
know, something that you enjoyeddoing as a child Like?
What was the connection there?
Speaker 1 (18:45):
I had started rock climbing with a few friends when
I was living in Auckland andwhen I was in the army.
I really wanted to do aleadership course and it so
happened that these leadershipcourses were well, this one was
run in the mountains, and so wewent mountaineering for a week
and we did it in Arthur's Pass,which is Canterbury region, just
inland from Christchurch, andit's basically this valley with
(19:10):
peaks that shoot up either sidefrom it.
So to get to the top of anypeak, you basically head
straight uphill for a goodthousand plus meters, and that
was my intro to mountaineering.
Every day we went out and weclimbed a new mountain and I
just remember my calves wereburning.
I went through all thesedifferent emotions with the
people I was with, because youhave highs and lows and moments
(19:34):
of fatigue and moments ofirritation.
And then, yeah, we did a lot ofself-assessment in terms of how
do we perform as a team and asindividuals, and that really
opened up to me, bothmountaineering, adventuring and
that whole side of, I guess,leadership under pressure, and I
(19:55):
wanted to do more of that.
I latched on to a couple ofpeople who said here's the
pathway, here's how to get there.
Get yourself a couple ofqualifications.
So I went out and got those onmy own, just went rock climbing
and learned how to teach it.
And, yeah, ever grateful forthe people that sort of just
walked along me and gave me afew tips along the way of how to
(20:16):
tie a better knot or how to usebetter protection when I was
climbing or little things likethat, and that really got me
into climbing.
And then I just took off andeverywhere I went I wanted to go
rock climbing, mountaineering,and then the skiing came and I
mean, who wouldn't want to skidown instead of walk down the
(20:36):
mountain?
So it got me and, yeah, then Ibecame an assistant ski guide
with the New Zealand MountainGuides.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
With the skiing down?
I mean, this is the dumbquestion, but presumably to ski
down you have to have your skigear, so you've got to climb up
with the ski gear.
That must make the climb a lotharder, or not so much.
What's the feels harder?
Speaker 1 (20:56):
So, yeah, yeah, you work for it, but nothing's worth
it if you're not really workingfor it, right?
Yeah, and so I would.
Sometimes you hike up with yourskis on your back, and other
times you put skins on thebottom of your skis and then you
can move up with those.
They basically give youfriction going uphill.
But, yeah, as soon as you're onskis, it just feels like a lot
(21:20):
of fun to me.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
And do you go?
You know, other than the rescuesituations which we'll get into
shortly, do you go up withothers?
Obviously, it's safer to go upwith other people, and so you're
doing a climb together and thenyou ski down together.
Is that essentially how itworks when you're just out there
for fun?
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Yeah, and I always go back country skiing with other
people.
Yeah, it is much safer.
Nobody can hear you if you'reby yourself and you get hurt.
So, yeah, we go out and we'llclimb a peak and then ski down
it, and now I teach people to dothe same or guide people in
those situations.
I was ski guiding in Februaryearlier this year in Canada, so
(22:04):
that was my first time actuallyskiing in Canada.
It was a lot of fun, someglaciated skiing, and I'd
totally love to go back thereand do some more guiding.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Have you had situations where you almost felt
like you may need rescueservices yourself, where you've
been up there and it's actuallybeen a bit sketchy.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Oh yeah, I have had a situation actually where I
pulled a PLB, which is a personlocated with Beacon and I was
with Brent and he cartwheeledwearing his crampons.
We were coming down from anattempt on Mount Cook.
He took a bad fall, severelysprained both ankles and we had
(22:41):
some really difficult terrainover the Tasman Glacier to
travel.
There was no way we were goingto be able to crawl over that
with his broken feet.
So, yeah, I pulled a PLB andthe Aureki Mount Cook rescue
team came in with a helicopterand took us out.
So I've been on the other endof a rescue as well, which I
(23:03):
think more than anything makesme appreciate it so much and
want to do the best by thepeople that call for help when
they need it.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
And so did you not, obviously, on that ascent, but
you've climbed Mount Cook beforeMount Aoraki.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
I haven't actually made it up to the summit yet.
They're still on my to-do listthe goal yeah, yeah, I've had a
couple of attempts and part ofliving a long time while you're
climbing mountains is knowingwhen to turn around and come
back, and so a couple ofsituations where I've had to go
ended up turning around becausethe weather or the avalanche
(23:39):
conditions went right, and so Iknew that the mountain will be
there another day you that themountain will be there another
day?
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Is that, mentally, really atough choice to make?
(24:33):
Or you've gone that far andit's been hard work to get that
far?
It must be tempting at times togo.
I don't really want to have tocome back and do this all over
again.
It must be tempting to push on,albeit that that might not be a
great choice yeah, yeah, summitfever is is real okay, that's
what they call it, summit fit.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yeah, I can see why yeah, you've already sunk a lot
of your energy into it.
So, just like you see it as asunk cost and and you want to
keep going and make the most ofit, you've given up your days,
the cost of getting there.
You found a friend to do itwith.
There's so many things to lineup to make it all happen, so it
(25:15):
is really hard when you need toturn around and try another time
, which may be months or evenyears away.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And what about you as a rescuer?
So how did you get into that?
I can see why you would want to, because there's this
confluence of things you loveand the sense of adventure.
But how did that get startedwith you becoming an official
rescuer?
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Yeah, so generally with search and rescue, they
take people on for thespecialist teams who have
existing personal experience andskills in that pursuit.
So I was a climber, I was amountaineer, I'd been
instructing and guiding and,yeah, I put my hand up to join
the team.
There was a bit of aprobationary period where they
(25:57):
suss you out and make sure thatyou have all the skills that
they're looking for.
And then, essentially, yeah,you go through a bit of a
training program with search andrescue.
And then, essentially, yeah,you go through a bit of a
training program with search andrescue.
You learn how to search forpeople, different search
techniques.
You learn how to operate safelyaround helicopters and aircraft
.
You learn how to do a lot offirst aid and medical support,
(26:20):
because you may be with apatient for quite a while before
the paramedics can arrive, yeah, and then learning how to move
people in really difficultterrain.
So we're moving patients withany sort of injury or condition
and you're at altitude andyou're in a steep area and it
(26:40):
may be snowy or icy or justrocky.
So, yeah, there's a lot tofigure out.
And so, yeah, the training,it's ongoing.
I'm always learning new ways ofdoing things and our team is
always like improving ourtechniques, learning from
international best practice oreven setting our own best
practice when we can see thatsomething works best in our area
(27:02):
.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
How often is a rescue Like I know?
Obviously they're not scheduled, but you know, like, on average
, are you out there like everyweekend.
Are you out there everyWednesday?
You know, like is it a weeklything.
How often roughly, do you haveto head up into the mountains?
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Yeah, you're right, they're very sporadic.
Sometimes you might get two ina week, other times we may not
get one for a few months.
But with my team that's thealpine rescue canterbury team we
cover the canterbury regionalongside our akimat cook team
and we would get a job for ourteam on average about once every
(27:38):
month or two.
Yeah, and these are the jobswhich are too technical or the
conditions are too serious ordangerous for the land search
and rescue ground teams to gointo.
So the police or the rescuecoordination centre will call us
up and ask us to head on in andwe go prepared to perhaps stay
(28:00):
out there for 24 hours.
There's always an unknownfactor Sometimes we get dropped
off by the heli and we don'tknow if they're going to be able
to pick us back up.
So we have to go and preparefor all circumstances to both
look after ourselves and thepeople that have called for help
.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
So what does that look like?
Do you get a littlenotification that comes through
on your phone, a phone call orwhatever, and then you suddenly
have to, you know, head out tocatch a helicopter, or how does
that work?
Speaker 1 (28:32):
it's sort of very international rescue sounding,
it's like yeah, yeah sometimesit feels a little bit like that
yeah, we get a phone callessentially comes through, and
then our team communicates witheach other around who's heading
up.
But yeah, basically it's.
Then we drive to the aircrafthangar, jump on maybe the
(28:53):
Westpac heli or another rescuehelicopter and, yeah, within an
hour we can be flying over thesouthern alps of New Zealand and
looking for the person who'scalled for help.
Yeah, it's quite surreal whenyou're working in an office in
the afternoon and then nextminute an hour later you're
(29:14):
flying over a two and a halfthousand meter peak in the snow
and sunset looking for somebodywho's injured themselves.
Yeah, sometimes you're going topinch yourself.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
It's actually, it's crazy, and presumably there must
be some situations where it'sgone off and you're out for a
drink or something withcolleagues and you presumably at
that point have to go look, Ihave to tap out here.
I'm not going to be able to doit, or do you go on call like
how does that work?
Speaker 1 (29:40):
yeah, we have a bit of a cool roster system but,
yeah, there's definitely timeswhere you have to say I'm unav,
unavailable today.
Somebody else is going to haveto take it up.
So we've got a good team toshare it around with.
I mean, there's 16 of us at themoment in the
Christchurch-based team and weshare it around.
We have an encore roster so weknow how many people we have
available.
And then it means that we canat least have our fast response
(30:02):
team head out.
That's two members to startwith, and then we build it up as
it gets more complex ordifficult or prolonged.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
And do you keep all your gear at home or is it all
out at the airport or whathappens there?
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yeah, that's interesting.
It's something that we've beenlooking to change and improve on
as we professionalise the team.
So now we keep it all out atthe airport.
We used to have it at home, butyou can imagine getting the
call up and then you're huntingaround your garage looking for
all the bits and pieces that youneed, and then some of it you
used for your own adventure inthe weekend.
(30:36):
So it's drying out on the line,not what you want to be doing
when somebody is.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yeah it's life or death.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Yeah, yeah yeah, so yeah, we've been able to,
through like really generousfunding and grants, slowly build
up the equipment we need andall of the gear, so that the
dream was and becoming a realityis, that we can turn up in your
shorts and your t-shirt at theheli hanger and all the gear is
there.
(31:02):
So next minute you're dressedup, ready to go into freezing
conditions on on the top of themountain and safely yeah execute
what needs to be done.
Do you get scared?
Speaker 2 (31:13):
no.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
I don't get scared and this is an interesting one,
because I think not many peoplewould admit they're coming to
scared if they're a rescuer butthere's certainly moments where
my heart beats quite quickly.
There's quite a lot ofadrenaline going because
everything's you know the heli'swearing up, you've got all your
gear on, you've got seconds tomake decisions.
(31:35):
So, yeah, you certainly have tocalm down and start thinking
quite logically.
We put things in placechecklists so that you don't
forget anything and so that youcan make really sound decisions,
because, yes, some of thosedecisions are life and death.
Sometimes we're puttingourselves in a potentially
(31:55):
dangerous situation it could beavalanche conditions or poor
weather, so we need to make somereally big decisions quite fast
, compared to when you're goingout on your own adventure.
So, yeah, that's something thatsort of really engages my mind
and I enjoy that to an extent.
(32:16):
But, yeah, sometimes I wouldsay I get a little bit nervous
for sure.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
So there must be times where and I'm guessing a
lot of times where there arejust simply conditions or
factors that you need to bringinto the equation that are
completely outside yourcollective control, like weather
or access or avalanche, and youare then having to make a
decision that's not optimal theweather's, it's foggy or it's
(32:43):
raining or whatever and thenyou're having to make a
literally a life and deathdecision around some of those
things.
Has that helped you sort oflook at making decisions outside
of Alpine Rescue just in yourgeneral everyday life and make
it seem a little bit easier tohandle big stuff when you can't
really control everything?
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah, it certainly does put things into context and
helps me to go through a few ofthe same processes.
That it may not be the hollyblades are wearing up and the
weather is turning, but I may bein a situation where a client
needs something tomorrow andeverything is just broken.
(33:23):
So what are we going to do?
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, exactly, is just broken.
So what are we going to do?
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And so when you get into thesesituations, you're in the, in
the mountain.
You must have had some timeswhere you've just had some
really good outcomes, and thenthere's been other times where
maybe it hasn't been good.
Any stories around those, thosesorts of things yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
It's a real highs and lows like the optimal highs and
lows like the optimal highs andthe optimal lows.
There's nothing as satisfyingand exhilarating as being able
to use your skills, be part ofan amazing team and be there for
somebody on their bad day toget them out of trouble.
That's super rewarding in and ofitself.
(34:03):
On the other end of that yeah,there's, the reality is
sometimes, by the time we getthe call, the person who's in
trouble has already passed away,or yeah, or this situation ends
up and they have a permanentdisability or even psychological
trauma from the event, and sothose situations are so much
(34:27):
harder to navigate.
It takes a real team to dealwith that.
We're such a small community inthe climbing and mountaineering
community in New Zealand, sothere's many a time when we know
the people that we'reresponding to on the mountains
or somebody knows them.
So, yeah, there's a huge amountto to navigate together and it
(34:49):
takes a lot of support and careamongst the team for each other
as well as really for the forthe people we're going up to
help, and often their familiesreach out to us or their friends
after an event as well.
Yeah, that's, it can be quitegut-wrenching to be true, and
how do you deal with that?
Speaker 2 (35:09):
are you given counseling?
Do you share amongst the team?
How do you process that?
Speaker 1 (35:15):
lots of ways we support each other but from
counseling from an externalprovider through to talking it
through, we do a team debriefafter every single rescue, no
matter how well or otherwise itwent.
We will be there for each other.
We have a real honesty cultureso you can call out anything
(35:37):
that you thought was unsafe orjust, yeah, not best practice.
Essentially and yeah, we don'ttake it personally it's all
about learning together and thenalso being there for each other
when things go really, reallybadly for the person that we've
responded to.
Yeah, we have group counsellingavailable as well and it needs
(36:01):
to be ongoing because thesethings, you know, will pop up
three weeks down the line, threemonths down the line, even
years down the line.
It's not unusual for such a Iguess it's not unusual for such
a I guess a big, excitable sortof situation to become quite
traumatic for people over time.
So we also give people time todeal with that and there's no
(36:22):
pressure to jump back on thenext job.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Yeah, is there a command structure on the
mountain?
So, in terms of with the rescueteam, is there a clear this
person is the boss and thenthese people are subordinate to
that.
Yeah, it's a pretty flatstructure.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
You know you may be working just around the corner
of a bluff from your teammateand you just need to be able to
trust each other.
And it's more than anything.
It's a really high trustenvironment.
The pilot has to be able totrust us because they're sending
us down on a winch, which meansthat essentially, at some point
we're attached.
You know, we're on the groundand we're attached to the
(37:01):
helicopter and there's a lot oftrust in that.
There's the winch operator.
They have to trust us thatwe're not going to attach
ourselves onto something thatcould be dangerous.
Yeah, so there's a whole lot oftrust going on.
So, whilst we do appoint afield team leader, that's
basically just for the ease ofmaking decisions, so that they
(37:22):
can make the final call onthings.
But yeah, it's similar in somerespects to the Army and the
camaraderie that I felt there,that you know that each person
is very good at what they'redoing and they are looking out
for everybody else's safety aswell as for their own.
That's critical to a well-oiledoperation.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
And so then you get off the mountain and you do some
sort of debrief and look at youknow what could we have done
better?
And are pretty open aboutfeedback about something that
wasn't done well or could beimproved.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, I really encourage that in the team, like
I just encourage people tothrow their egos out the window
and I have to, I guess, exhibitthat by taking leadership and
owning.
When there are things that Icould have done better and I can
see that somebody else maybring it up, and there's always
something.
As much as we like to thinkwe're very good at what we do
(38:18):
and we are, there's alwayssomething we can refine for next
time.
And, because these situationsare so unique, there's no rescue
that ever looks like the lastone.
There's always somethingdifferent.
Whether it's the people we'repicking up the injury one,
there's always somethingdifferent.
Whether it's the people wherewe're picking up the injury the
weather, the snow conditionsyeah, so it's it's just so much
to learn and deal with everytime.
(38:38):
And we also debrief with theheli crew as well, and if the
police ran the operation, we'lldebrief with them, so that
there's a line of, yeah,accountability and learning
throughout that.
Yeah, and I really appreciatethat we just own it.
Yes, that's something I coulddo better.
And if it's something I coulddo better, then probably
something other people in theteam could learn from as well.
(39:01):
And so, sharing thoseexperiences amongst the team and
saying, hey, yeah, I could haveattached this better last, and
then everybody else learns fromit.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
So and I think there's some learnings there
that parallel across into thebusiness world as well, because
you know you're in an extremeenvironment, but you're also in
a high performance environmentand so in that environment it's
okay to be able to give feedback, honest feedback.
That wasn't good enough.
What could we do about that?
And yet we feel like in a workcontext it's you know, it's oh.
(39:34):
I don't want the person to beupset if I give them that
feedback, yet it's so criticalin the environment you're in.
So what would be a reallymemorable rescue for you?
Speaker 1 (39:43):
that you look back and you think you know whether
it was a good outcome or a notso good outcome, something that
really was quite a memorableexperience for you yeah, for me
it was one of the first rescuesthat I took part in, and it
happens to be just me and oneother team member that deploy on
the helicopter into themountains that day.
(40:04):
There was two people who werestranded at the top of the
mountain.
There were some quite activeavalanches occurring around the
mountain and the weather lookedlike it was about to pack in for
the next five days, so not asituation where you want to tell
them to sit and wait it out onthe summit whilst they were
(40:26):
shivering in the snow.
So they had spent the nightthere and we managed to get into
them early morning.
It took quite a while to find away to access the mountain with
the helicopter, so they hadspent the night there and we
managed to get into them earlymorning.
It took quite a while to find away to access the mountain with
the helicopter.
We did a lot of circles at thebase of a glacier in the
helicopter and as I was lookingat the mat in the heli, I was
(40:47):
looking out the window, lookingat my mat, looking out the
window, looking at my mat, andthere was a lot of clouds
outside the window, and it wasmy first, I guess, experience in
doing so many rotations in theheli.
I instantly felt sick and I'dhad a cliff bar, a muesli bar or
half muesli bar for breakfastthat morning at, I think, 4am or
(41:08):
something.
And anyway, just five minutesbefore we're about to winch down
onto the glacier, I lose thecontents of my stomach inside
the heli.
So that happened, put my micback down and the pilot asked if
I was okay.
I said yep, no, we're fine,carry on.
(41:28):
I felt much better after thatand one minute later I was
winching down onto the glacier,ready to climb up to this peak
to rescue a couple of people.
I must say that it's one of themost humbling experiences I
have ever had, and the poor helicrew had to clean it up later
(41:49):
on.
Anyway, I headed up the glacierwith my colleague.
We climbed up it took us acouple of hours to get to,
because it was quite misty andfoggy and rainy to get to where
these two people were.
They were huddling inside a icecave that they dug out with
their ice axes, and then they'dslept in during the night on top
(42:10):
of a rope.
So they were, fair to be said,quite cold, in a sort of mildly
hypothermic condition andcompletely disoriented as to how
to get out of there, and veryfatigued as well.
So we guided them down thesummit, across, back, across the
glacier, only to be told thatthe heli wasn't able to come
(42:31):
back for us because they'd beencalled on another mission and so
we were going to have to wait.
But we could see the cloudrolling up the valley and we
were so worried.
Is this cloud going to preventus getting picked up?
Because if it does, we've got agood seven hour hike back up
over the mountain and throughterrain that I had to assess for
(42:54):
avalanches and then out to thevalley floor.
So doing that with two veryfatigued and mildly hypothermic
people was going to be quite amission.
After a full day out already,by this time we're drenched to
the bone.
Your waterproofs only staywaterproof for so long, and we
dug a snow pit and set ourpatients inside of it to keep
(43:17):
them warm.
At least we had a turnaroundtime.
We said 5.30, that's it, we'regoing to have to go.
If the heli can't make it hereby then, that's it, we're going.
We were so lucky At 5.30,.
I'm looking at my watch.
I'm telling my colleague okay,radio in, we've got to go.
We've got to climb back up,over and out.
(43:38):
Don't want to do this, butthat's our safety time and we've
got to stick to it.
And I turned around and saw aclearing in the cloud, so jumped
on the radio and told the pilotback up, come back up.
I heard the blades whirring inthe distance and they started
(43:59):
coming back up to us.
I had a mouthful of coffee leftin the thermos which we'd saved
so that we could throw it allover the snow to give it some
definition.
And as soon as the heli camewithin sight, we threw our
coffee all over the snow so thatthey could see where to hover.
And we proceeded to jump intothe heli with more of a belly
(44:21):
plant because still wearingcrampons at the time.
So that was one of those realclose calls and just a real
success at the end of the day.
But we worked for it and it wasquite memorable and that's,
yeah, a mission that we won someawards for in terms of the
(44:41):
silver bravery award from yesfrom the royal humane society
and at first it was funnybecause I thought what I'm not
brave, I was just doing job.
But I realised there was quite afew moments throughout that
where yeah, a little bit nervous.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
It was sketchy, it was, yeah, it was touch and go,
probably Uncomfortable, yeah,and the family members of those
involved, let alone thoseinvolved, must have just been so
incredibly appreciative of youputting your own life on the
line.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
It's awesome to be able to help people.
I feel very lucky.
It's really insane, I mean, forthose listening.
This is an audio only podcast.
You can't see how wide my mouthis open just listening to that
story, because actually one ofthe things I'm intrigued about
is so in 2024, for thehelicopter to find you, you have
to throw coffee on the snow.
There's no like bettertechnical solution than that
coffee on the snow.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
There's no like better technical solution than
that.
Oh, that's funny there.
There are a few tricks outthere there's you can have a
spray paint and spray a highthis spray onto the snow.
I didn't happen to have any ofthat in my pack that day.
So yeah, the coffee it was, andit did a really good job.
It gave a lot of definitions,so the pilot was grateful
honestly, you are living such ahigh octane kind of life.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
So what now for you?
Obviously you're enjoying sortof alpine rescue.
Is there something that youreally want to tick off the
bucket list that maybe youhaven't done yet?
Well, that's a really goodquestion from an adventure point
of view, you know like it'ssomething that would really
challenge you.
It sounds pretty challenging.
For most people that's wayoutside their comfort zone, but
you must be getting kind offamiliar with that.
(46:17):
Like do you want to do like abig mountain climb?
Is there something like that inthere?
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Yeah, I'm really enjoying the New Zealand
mountains and I think I'd liketo work away at the 3,000-metre
peaks Not in any rush, I don'tneed to do them all at once, but
, yeah, I'd love to just keepclimbing those 3,000-metre peaks
.
They're quite diverse and theyall offer their own challenges,
so that's my dream over the nextdecade.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Yeah, that's just scary.
How many are there in NewZealand?
Must be about 10 or somethinglike that, maybe.
I think it's just scary.
How many are there in NewZealand?
Must be about 10 or somethinglike that, maybe.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
About 23.
Is it?
Speaker 2 (46:56):
23?
Because Cook or Aoraki is 3,400, something like that, and I
guess along the Southern Alpsthere's just a whole bunch of
them there.
Honestly, that is phenomenal.
Honestly, anna, you are aninspiration, because I think
there are people out there whowe all love our sort of nine to
(47:16):
five existences and working fromhome and going to the
supermarket and that sort ofthing, and yet you're out there
just doing some really crazythings and some extreme things
and, in the process, savingpeople's lives.
So you know, huge ups to you fordoing what you do, because it's
this most people wouldn't wantto do, that there's no way most
people want to help people.
(47:36):
There's no way that they wouldwant to go into alpine
conditions and put their life onthe line up in the mountains to
go and rescue others.
So thank you for the work thatyou do do in New Zealand for
those who do choose to go upinto the mountains and keeping
them safe.
It has been a huge honour tochat to you today and again, big
ups to Janine Granger for theintroduction.
(47:57):
She, like I said, she was just.
She couldn't speak highlyenough of you and the person you
are, the character you are andthe work that you're doing, so I
just really want to thank youfor your time today.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Thank you, greg, appreciate it, it's been fun.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
Hey, don't forget to check out Deskwork, the team
behind you, being able to buildhigh-performing offshore teams
for your startups and SMEs.
It's deskworkco.
Backslash, greg, and go andsave yourself some hard-earned
money.
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