A BROWNS Plains CFA volunteer says his brigade wasn’t called to a crash a few kilometres from the brigade’s station.
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And the brigades that were called were twice given wrong information about the crash site before they finally arrived to help a woman trapped in her car.
Tony Douglas said the woman would have received help much sooner if his brigade had been called.
Mr Douglas has been a volunteer since he was 17 and lives next door to the Browns Plains station, on the Murray Valley Highway, east of Rutherglen.
Two cars collided at an intersection near the Logic Centre about 4pm on October 12, a few kilometres away from the Browns Plains shed.
The woman driver, believed to be in her 50s, was trapped in her car. She suffered shoulder injuries and minor cuts.
A CFA spokeswoman said SES, Wodonga West CFA and Barnawartha units were paged at 4.10pm.
She said the crash site could not be pinpointed from information given via Triple-0.
The crews were given two incorrect locations before finding the accident on the third attempy, at 4.25pm.
Mr Douglas said neither he nor any of the 30-odd Browns Plains CFA volunteers were called.
“Why do I bother wandering around with a pager if I don’t get notified of emergencies in my area?” he said.
“You’re in the CFA to help people and in this particular instance, people were without CFA support a hell of a lot longer than they should’ve been.”
He suspected the caller to Triple-0 did not give the right location and advised people to take note of signs, buildings or businesses when they gave incident locations.
“If we can’t find you, we can’t help,” he said.
The CFA would not comment on why Browns Plains was not called.