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Diary

Fri 1st April

With fantastic irony, the March team meeting and the AGM are on April Fool's day. I've heard stories of similarities between a previous AGM and the 'Night of the long knives'. However, tonight the AGM is rather dull. All the current exec members report on the year. I guess the main item of interest is that we've had 34 callouts this operational year - a record for the team and in strong contrast to last year's 14. It's an unpredictable business, mountain rescue. Geoff thanks everyone and then the rest of the exec follow suit in making their reports. Catch phrase of the night seems to be "... and I'd especially like to thank Chris".

We quickly wrap things up with all the officers elected unanimously. Apparently, the new executive then determines the new appointed officers for the team. I wait for the sack, but sadly none of the exec deliver my P45 so I guess I'll carry on fiddling with the website for the coming year. (Geoff - it's a bit more sophisticated than fiddling - honest!).

We move on to the normal team meeting. Highlights include a touching letter from the wife of a missing person that we searched for in January. We have a serious moment whilst we all appreciate receiving the letter. The meeting quickly returns to normal when Pete is surprised to be announced as a volunteer to wash both landrovers. The shock is so much that he stops taking the minutes and considers his position. The rest of us contribute to the debate by roling in the aisles.

Geoff manages to prolong the meeting by presenting and discussing a torch and a pair of gloves in his Team Leader's talk (it's not all full-on excitement in mountain rescue).

I've run out of amusing ways to end these pieces by saying that we went to the pub. I'm sure that you get the picture - we went to the pub.

Mon 4th April

It's first aid and Neale has picked up the challenge of delivering a session on the drugs that we carry in our first aid kits. In a break from tradition, there's no powerpoint, not even a lecture, just a hands-on activity (spot the teacher!). We split into groups and fill in a sheet, drug by drug (looking at them, not taking them). We have to remember signs and symptoms, side-effects, dosage etc. We finish of in the traditional manner of each group reporting on one drug. It's a good learning experience and I now even know how to spell anaphylactic - you never know when that could come in handy!

Sun 10th April

We're having our weekend activity early this month to cover the Kinder Downfall fell race. We report to the hut at 9.00 and are allocated to hill parties covering particular points on the race. I'm with Nigel and Paul and we're off to Ashop Head. Others are less fortunate and end up providing backup in the hut or scribing for our landrover-based radio link. All very worthwhile, but there's a lot of doing nothing involved.

We drive up to the Filter House and walk up William Clough to Ashop Head. We're in position just after 10.30. After a few minutes we're joined by the race marshals, whose job is to note the numbers of all the fell runners as they pass and, hence, work out if anyone's gone AWOL. This turns out to be less straightforward than it sounds, as there's a constant stream of runners, some in rather large groups. It's very impressive watching them steam up Ashop Head to the plateau. We make appropriate encouraging noises from our picnic spot.

Once the last runner has gone passed, the marshals return to Hayfield, leaving us getting gradually colder, waiting for all the runners to complete the course safely. It would be a shame to walk down and then have to rush back up again to rescue a casualty. Several hours pass....

We follow the progress of the sweeper, as the hill parties report that he has passed their positions. Nigel has enough experience not to radio base and ask if we can come down yet. Mick is the first to crack and radios in with a hopeful "Are there any movement instructions?" call. It's a one word: "Negative" from base! Shortly afterwards our party is recalled: Nigel's long game has obviously worked! We get back to Hayfield just before 15:00 - a nice easy day for us, with none of last year's air ambulance casualty evacuation. Plenty of time for a drink in the sunshine before returning home for tea.

Wed 13th April

Tonights training is on first aid equipment. We've all had a text message from Geoff telling us that we'll be outside tonight. As we're milling about in the hut, I get called to the inner sanctum, along with 8 other team members. We going to run 5 first aid scenarios tonight, with one casualty and one observer for each scenario. For the more alert readers (!), we only need 9 team members rather than 10 because we're using Annie, the plastic dummy, for the CPR scenario (dummys, team members - make up your own jokes). I'm a casualty with Pete as the observer. Our scenario is a mountain bike crash, where I am concious but have a broken C-spine (neck). Other scenarios are an ashma attack, an unconcious casualty needing CPR and the defib (to restart the heart), a lower leg break and an upper leg break. We all head off to the woods, checking out our exhaustive crib sheets as we go (another teacher organised event!).

I adopt a position slumped against a fence. Lying on my back on a flat piece of ground would make life far too easy for the first aider. The first group arrives and Mike goes through our standard casualty assessment routine. It's full of acoryms so it's SAFE approach, primary survey (ABCDE), AMPLE medical/event history and secondary survey.

As he approaches, Mike can see I've taken a tumble from a Mountain Bike, so he immediately gets someone to hold my head still in case I have a neck injury. I can tell Mike my name, so I have an airway and am breathing (although breathing is shallow and laboured). For circulation, my pulse is 45, rather low. Disability - at this stage on our simple AVPU scale, I'm A for alert (it's all relative!). I have no obvious long bone fractures, so Mike goes into the secondary survey. He finds the pain in my neck, no other pain or injury, but a weakened grip and reduced sensation in my arms and legs. On the more accurate Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS - heard it on Casualty or ER?) for assessing consciouness, I'm around 10 (out of 15).

Having diagnosed my broken neck, Mike gives me oxygen, applies a neck collar and then, with a little bit of entonox to ease the pain, I'm log-rolled into the vac mattress ready for evacuation. This isn't as easy as it sounds because of the awkard (but realistic) position that I've chosen. Finally, we have a quick debrief and then the first aiders move round to the next scenario and I get back down ready for the next group.

After all five groups have gone through, we return to the hut for a general debrief. Some general comments are made about following our standard procedure, not getting distracted by obvious injuries that might be masking something more serious and about always talking to the casualty to reassure them. Everyone thinks its been a really useful night and there's general agreement to Vinnie's request for more of these scenario-based training sessions.

ATTTP (And Then To The Pub). It appears that the diary groupies may be increasing in number, both inside and outside the team. I was told by Nigel that a fell runner from the Downfall race on Sunday passed comment about the diary (I hope you're still reading and enjoying it!). Maybe there's a book in here somewhere....?

Thu 14th April

I put the latest instalment of the increasingly popular diary on the site and also write this month's KMRT article for the Hayfield Parish magazine.

Did I mention the complete redesign of the website to meet current legislation and best practice? Anyway, I made the new site live tonight and after a bit of messing about, it seems to work. I'm sure I'll hear pretty quickly if anyone has problems with it. It doesn't look very different, but there are some major structural changes. Sadly, I've tried and failed to get one of those natty little icons in the address bar. I'm sure that with a bit more fiddling, I could get it going, but, in a break from tradition, I'm off to the Royal as a last minute substitute in their pub quiz team. I hope that they don't think I'm going to be their secret weapon!

Fri 29th April

As we've had no callouts this month, I'm expecting a short team meeting this evening. We have the standard bits of business, the most notable of which is the treasurer's report where Nigel tells us that we have received a £5000 donation from the Will of a supporter. This is great news and will allow us to buy additional high-band radios. On a personal note, I'm pleased to pass Nigel a cheque for £21, which is the first contribution from the on-line shop. Thanks to everyone who's been using it.

Ken, the chair, reports that Steve has stepped down from First Aid Officer and that this role has been taken on by Mike. Some diary readers have asked me to make clear that this is "Cagoule" Mike, rather than "Darts and Doms" Mike. Cagoule Mike organised this months first aid training and obviously made too good a job of it. Expectations are high for the rest of the year.

I was sitting at the meeting wondering exactly what I was going to write in the diary, when Geoff came to my rescue by demonstrating a book of photographs of signposts, trig points and other interesting landmarks around Kinder. At once, the atmosphere of the meeting changed to keen anticipation and interest! Well, peels of laughter. It is actually useful to have this in the control room, as twice this year we've rescued people who have been lost by a signpost! It always seems to be Geoff who's the butt of the "worthy but dull" items.

Later, at the pub, Geoff mentioned that he would let me know if I overstepped the mark in this diary. I did ask if he could give me advanced warning just as I was approaching it. If there's a May section to the diary, I've obviosuly not got there yet.