Safety Week

Finally getting around to upload this after being busy with exams and having trouble with video editing software. But better late than never!

In order to study here at UNIS, you have to take part in a safety week course pretty much as soon as you get here. This is because all courses have a fieldwork element to them that means leaving the safe confines of the town (relatively safe anyway- we've already had a small avalanche and three polar bears wandering around!). My course's field work is actually very tame, we just get driven to the Kjell Henriksen Observatory (KHO) every night one week and then to EISCAT every night another week. Some have fieldwork where you have to go out on ski mobiles on the sea ice, where there are bears and the chances of falling in to the freezing water or hidden crevasses. So safety is important! The week also means you're more prepared if you go out on a private trip. So here's a list of the things I learned and got up to.

Day one: introductory lectures
This day was thankfully just an indoor day with lots of talks. 7 hours of talks in fact. I was still really ill at this point, so I was glad to be indoors, and I admit I fell asleep at some point...
Mainly we learned that there are a lot of ways to die here. They kept telling us that they weren't trying to scare us, but I'm not sure about that! Even stuff like eating a bit of snow can kill you because it could contain a liver destroying parasite that mice spread around. It was also stressed to us that polar bears aren't just bit of a joke, there are lots of them and people encounter them all the time. So. Yeah. We were also told what clothes to wear (cotton= bad, wool= good), and how to check for hypothermia and frost bite, or "frost nips". We were also told that they are very protective of cultural heritage and the wildlife, so to basically leave any nests or fossils or old buildings like the mines alone.

Day two: navigation and rifle handling
Our group had navigation first. We were taught how to understand various coordinate systems, how to use a satellite phone and how to make a planned route using a GPS device. Our task at the end was to plan a route outside, follow it, and midway call the instructor with the satellite phone. We could then look at how closely we followed the route at the end.

The second activity was rifle training. We got driven up to the range, which was an interesting experience in itself, because it was halfway up a snowy mountain and this seemingly normal bus handled it with ease. I don't know how the tires are made here, but it's impressive! Anyway, we got in and were told once again about the dangers of bears, and when you should shoot them. Basically you should try to scare them off with a flare gun, and if you can't and they get closer than 30m, shoot to kill. If you kill a bear when that situation could have been avoided, you can get a fine. We were then told how to half load a rifle, and then went outside to shoot at the targets.
Lying down was fine, and I shot fairly well (though admittedly at the wrong target). Crouching... not so much.Basically I had a panic attack, so failed and can't handle a gun unless I take the test again. Probably for the best, to be honest. One happy note to end on though is that we got a lift back to our accommodation, so that was nice.

Gun bruise on my guns

Day three: emergency camp and first aid training
In the emergency camp training we got taught how to set up an emergency tent and how to light a little stove. First we did it inside, which was fine, and then outside, which was much more difficult! We luckily had very little wind, but I imagine if it was windy things would be extremely difficult, especially tying the little knots in the cold. Outside we also had to shovel snow all around the edge of the tent to stop wind from getting under it. Inside the tent it was impressively warm.

Jen happy to be playing with fire

In first aid training we learned CPR, how to apply pressure to bleeding wounds and how to spot and treat hypothermia. We redid this outside, which was much harder as everyone was wearing so many layers of clothing and the wind made it hard to hear if people were breathing or not. We also learned how to wrap someone up in an insulating sleeping bag and how to make a stretcher out of backpacks.

Day four: Lab and logistics, avalanche training
Here we got taught how to react if there were a fire or terrorist attack in the building. Most of the escape exits are out of windows, and some involve hopping fences and crawling under the building to get out. We got a tour of the building and got told a bit about how the university is run.

Is this likely to happen?!

In avalanche training we got taught how to best avoid avalanches, and how to find someone who'd been buried. This is relatively easy if they had an avalanche beacon on them, and much harder if they don't. In that case you have to look for clues first such as clothes or skis, and then spread out in a line and probe the area with long rods. We then got taught the most efficient way to dig them out. This was perhaps the most scary training because there's such limited time to act- after only 15 minutes of being buried, chances of survival drop dramatically.

Day five: Forming and properties of sea ice, glacier rescue

The day of the ice dunk! Fist we got taught about what kind of ice is safe to travel on, and how to react if someone did fall in. Then we got dressed up in snowmobile suits, which weren't waterproof, but kept us slightly dryer than we would have been. This wasn't a totally realistic scenario for a number of reasons- the boots were just wellies so that they could dry between groups, the ice picks we used were for sea ice when we were at fresh water ice, we had only our thermal layers on underneath, etc. But it gave us an idea at least. Then we travelled in the beltwagon (a strange, tank-like machine that weighs 7 tonnes and can travel very effectively through snow) to the hole full of ice water they'd dug out. It had frozen over, so they had to break up the ice before we got in!

Inviting

As you can see in the video below, the whole thing was over pretty quickly, and I actually found it to be quite fun. I wouldn't have liked to be in there any longer though. The worst bit was the walk from the water to the beltwagon, which was freezing in the wind!

After warming up a bit, we had glacier rescue, where we got taught how to rescue someone if they fell down a crevasse. This was a lot easier for people who had experience with climbing as it involved a lot of the same gear. We put our training to the test outside where a couple of us got winched up a storage container, which was fun

Day six- practical test

This day was rough because it lasted 6 1/2 hours outside with no breaks. There were five stations set up, each with a different scenario related to things we'd learned in the week. It's a blur in my mind of shovelling snow and cpr and trying not to fall over. Throughout the week I'd been appointed as group leader (completely randomly), which meant nothing until this day where I had to count people and "lead the group", which was hard when ill and everyone is walking faster than you. Regardless, we all passed and survived and got to witness a helicopter rescue at the end, as well as some aurora. We then headed back to the uni, were very grateful to have lunch, and then did a fun multiple choice quiz. My top ranking was 13th out of ~120, though that slipped about half way.

So that was my week! After everyone from Aberystwyth went straight into revision mode, as we had two exams in the next 8 days, as well as lectures starting. The first exam could have gone better, the second went pretty well. And then, finally... we could relax. Will update you more soon. Enjoy the video!