Luminox Code Red Survival Course with Captain K.Bala of Malaysia International Search and Rescue

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The Luminox Code Red Survival Course was a course that aimed to educate participants about the different scenarios that happened during various emergencies and taught them skills to overcome those situations. It emphasized the importance of teamwork and communication. It was a gathering of 18 participants from Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore, and was held on 18 June 2019 at the Code Red Academy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Before the course commenced, Luminox previewed their latest collections – ICE SAR Arctic 1200 Series, Navy SEAL 3600 Series, 30th Anniversary Sport Timer 0900 Series Limited Edition, as well as the special edition Malaysian International Search and Rescue (MISAR) collaborative timepiece.

Captain K.Bala, founder and chairman of MISAR, shared his experience and knowledge of search and rescue operation with the participants. As a well-known safety activist and emergency survival trainer, Captain K.Bala discovered that Luminox timepieces are suitable for his team as the Luminox Light Technology would allow them to keep track of the time in any lighting conditions during their mission.

Participants were assigned into 4 groups, which were named after Luminox timepieces – Navy SEAL, ICE SAR, Commando Frogman and Sea Wolves, with 4-5 members. Before the start of the activities, everyone was given a Luminox timepiece to experience first-hand the durability of the watch. Luminox has a tag line ‘EVERY SECOND COUNTS’ where time is phrased as a matter of ‘life and death’. In order to communicate this message, each participant had to time hack their watch, which was to synchronise the time on their watch to the seconds. Participants were given a time limit of 30 minutes for each activity which was based on simulating an emergency situation and emphasized the importance of every second during rescue operations. Participants were also graded on several factors throughout the activities, such as teamwork and communication skills.

There were a total of 6 stations. The first emergency simulated a road traffic accident (RTA) and this was one of the most common situations that occurred during flood and earthquake disasters. Therefore, RTA Casualty and RTA Extrication were two of the activities that participants managed to experience. RTA Casualty was a station where participants learnt to perform first aid and how to move a casualty into an ambulance. Participants were tested on how well they were able to work together while learning first aid skills. As for RTA Extrication, participants were taught on how to operate heavy duty equipment, such as cutter, chainsaw and rock drills in order to extricate a victim.

The Luminox Code Red Survival Course also allowed participants to have a first-hand experience to use equipment meant for search and rescue such as the firefighting gear as well as the hose from a Vehicle Fire Fighting. Due to the strong surge of water from the hose, two participants operated the hose with one aiming the hose and the other assisting with the recoil. In another station that simulated a search and rescue operation, rescuers had to locate survivors among rubbles and debris using the ResQ17, a wide-angle rescue system with carbon dioxide (CO2) sensor. The system would locate survivors in the debris by detecting CO2 and a wide angle camera which enabled communication between the survivor and rescuer.

Rescue missions require extraction of casualties from different terrains and environments. In order to relate to such missions, participants were taught how to abseil down a tall structure and worked together to move casualties from the ground to a higher platform. This activity allowed the participants to face their fear of heights and helped them to understand the importance of teamwork in such operations.

Lastly, a Flood Operation Simulation exercise was simulated in the pool. In the pool, Captain K.Bala introduced the common methods on how they would rescue civilians during a flood. Equipment such as life buoyant and inflatable raft were used to stimulate such situations and participants took turns to roleplay as victim and rescuer.

Captain K.Bala also share more about MISAR’s efforts and its operations, his personal thoughts and experiences with the participants, such as his motivation for the field of work and how the operations benefited him and his team members. He also mentioned that he could relate to the current tag line of Luminox, EVERY SECOND COUNTS, as he have been in numerous life and death situations, in which every second counts translates to every life counts.