scanSydney

Listening to the North Coast channel tonight there was a job at Ballina (6yom fallen 4m onto concrete), road crew and Inspector responded but a car with the callsign retrieval 82 also responded. Haven't heard them before, is that the staff from Lifesaver 2 at Lismore responding by road when the chopper is offline or someone else?

I have seen the "retrieval" callsign before
I flicked back through my notes and found that I had recorded "Retrieval 83" with an ambulance GRN number
A search on google reveals some more information that suggests it is tied up with Aeromedical retrievals possibly in the NSW Ambulance Northern region

http://www.ambulance.nsw.gov.au/Media/d ... 445a-0.pdf
The road ambulance attending is given the "Retrieval 95" callsign

The callsign seems to be an ambulance as you say but at odds with above
http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/about/nswh ... m-plan.pdf

Update:
Finding more documents about this reform

http://www.helis.com/database/news/nsw_hems14/
http://www.helis.com/database/modelorg/2619/
http://www.helis.com/database/news/aw139_tollgroup/
http://www.helis.com/database/news/aw139_westpac/

Thanks cartman, I will have a read through the info. It may have been 83 and not 82, was slightly hard to hear with the siren in background.

Can confirm it is definitely 82 and not 83, just heard them again responding to an mva at Bexhill (near Lismore)

I don't know if it's still a as big of a thing in Regional areas, but when I was with the fire brigade in Albury back in thhe 90's, Regional Hospitals - Albury and Wagga etc; use to have ED Staff trained up as Retrieval Teams and would be activated on request of Ambulance Road Crews to go out to Incident Scene's to assist with patient retrievals.

Careflight up to about 6 years ago still ran 2 or 3 Hospital Retrieval Courses for Regional Hospital Retrieval Teams.

In most cases back in thoses days they would had been transported by spear Ambulance Crew or local Police, but theses days with many hospitals now on the Ambulance Radio Net they may have ASNSW Radio's and utilize Hospital Owned Patient Transport Ambulances . . . thus the use of the Retrieval Callsigns maybe ?

It is starting to sound like in the Ambulance reform of medical retrieval services there is an assigned "primary retrieval" road crew ambulance on call for every shift for a region. From a quick read of the new procedures there seems to be more emphasis on on-scene trauma management following a review of overseas practices (particularly lessons learned from the US military re Iraq and Afghanistan) in handling these cases

Retrieval 82 seems to be working the North-east corner
I heard Retrieval 83 within the GRN footprint with a GRN radio id or was it PMR audio from NE corner with a radio patch id?
Retrieval 95 might be when it is tasked with the Aeromedical services
I wonder if Garry has heard anything up in his listening area

From further reading I think the position is called "Critical Care Paramedic - Road Retrieval"
http://nswhealth.erecruit.com.au/ViewPo ... ?Id=328858

Retrieval 81 = Broadmeadow Westpac Base (Newcastle) car number 3481
Retrieval 82 = Lismore LIfesaver Base car number 3482

amongst others, they're the only callsigns I know off the top of my head.

Retrieval Helo bases have a road ambulance assigned to them, the crew (doctor and paramedic) can respond in it if the case is close to the base and would be quicker than a helo response, or poor weather where flying is not an option etc.

Retrieval 3546 from Lismore was sent to a job a Ballina today, using the car number instead of an 8X callsign.