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Diary

Monday 3rd April 2006 – Casualty Care Training

The session tonight is to teach us the new changes to the CPR protocols. Mike and Neale give us the new details before we try it out on the CPR dummies (I’ll let you make your own jokes here). Under the old system, we used to do 2 rescue breaths (to oxygenate the blood) followed by 15 chest compressions (to pump it round the body). The new system places more emphasis on circulating blood to the brain, as we now go straight in to 30 chest compressions followed by 2 quick breaths, then back to the 30 compressions and repeat. It can quickly become very tiring carry out this procedure for any length of time, and you soon get quite warm, especially while wearing a down jacket!

It also brings another problem. Under the old system, if you quietly sang the first verse of “Nelly the Elephant” to yourself, when you get to “Trump, Trump, Trump” you have carried out 15 compressions and it’s time to stop. Now that we have to do 30 compressions, will we have to learn the words to the second verse?

We split in to three groups; one group goes over setting up the Oxygen cylinders and various masks with Mick, while the other two practice the new procedure on our CPR dummies. Fortunately my group gets good old Resusci-Annie and I can worry about giving CRP to Resusci-Dave another time.

Job done, and we head off to the pub to discuss important matters and generally put the world to rights!

Sunday 9th April 2006 – Exercise

Today’s exercise is a week earlier than usual as we are providing cover for the Kinder Downfall Fell race. This is a race which starts in Hayfield, goes round the tops of Kinder and heads back into Hayfield for the finish. The weather has been a little unusual to say the least. Yesterday was a really frosty day with snow on the tops, but today has started out with clear blue skies. It’s still pretty chilly and looks like there could be a bit of ice around. Not the best weather for Fell Running, but I’m sure that won’t bother them.

I am in a team with Pete and Pete, and we are sent off to make our way to the Downfall, a spot about half way round the course and as far away as we could get.

As we head up the hill the weather soon starts to change and it’s not long before we are heading straight into a snow storm. After an hour or so of walking and a few extra layers we finally radio in to let base know we have arrived at the Downfall.

The second law of Mountain Rescue states that “When you stop, you eat!” as you never know when you will get another chance. So with this in mind, I quickly break out my butty box and dig in! Now you would think that on the top of Kinder, tucked away, out of the wind, I would be able to get a bit of peace and quiet to eat my sandwiches. But no….I looked up to find that someone else had designs on my lunch!

It’s not long before the first runner goes through, then after a short gap the rest of the field start to pour through.

We give suitable encouragement as both Mike and Darren, fellow team members go past. About half way through the field, we get a report of an injured runner somewhere between the last check point and us. We radio in to let base know and start to retrace the route. We check the route all the way back to the previous team, without finding anyone, so it looks as though he managed to pick himself up and carry on. As everything looks to be clear, we head back to our position, just in time to see the course sweeper go past us. This means that all the runners have been through and we just have to wait for Kinder 3 to clear the route between them and us and we can head back.

After a short wait, they arrive and tell us that base has been trying to get hold of us on the radio. With the changing weather conditions, we were no longer receiving them and they were trying to tell us we could go! We take the hint and head down with Kinder 3.

As we make our way down, the sun comes out and it starts to warm up. Suddenly another storm blows in and we are back to walking through snow, this time with a bit of thunder thrown in.

After we got back to base, we were stood around discussing the day and the unusual weather. It turned out that some teams had taken a more comfortable approach to the day.

Friday 28th April 2006 – Team Meeting

Last Wednesday’s training was an optional repeat of the CPR training which I had carried out on the Monday, so this time I took the opportunity to have an evening off. As the Sunday training was brought forward to cover the Downfall Fell Race, it has been three weeks since we have met up. After the previous reasonably busy spell, it feels like a long time off.

Tonight’s meeting is a bit unusual. Geoff has made a change to the Callout system which he needs to tell us about, so it starts off more like a training session. We are getting an increasing number of calls to assist the other services, particularly the Ambulance service. As these jobs need an especially quick response, the message will request only the members who can make the RV within a given timescale to attend.

The rest of the meeting is fairly routine, with reports from the exec members on the latest developments.

Saturday 29th April 2006 – Callout

There seems to be an unwritten rule in Mountain Rescue that Callouts only ever happen at the most inappropriate moment. So with this in mind, I should have guessed that my parents visiting from Cumbria for the first time in a few months would be an ideal time to get called out. With impeccable timing, they had just walked through the door, when my phone went off. All they got was a “Great to see you…….See you later”, as I jumped in the car and drove off.

When I arrived at base it turned out that someone had injured their leg at the Downfall. They were with a group of friends, who were attempting to walk them off the hill, but it was slow going and the party was beginning to get cold. In view of this, a request had been sent for the Air Ambulance to attend. In these situations we proceed as normal until the helicopter arrives, as they cannot land if the visibility becomes too poor and occasionally get called to a more serious incident while on-route. This time the helicopter had no problems and got to the casualty far earlier than we could have. The only problem we had was getting communications with the pilot, so a team was dispatched to the Filter House at the bottom of Kinder to attempt to make contact and find out if the rest of the party needed escorting down.

In the end the casualty was taken to hospital by the Air Ambulance and the rest of the party were able to make it down under their own steam. Most of us hung around the hut, waiting to see if we were going to be needed, ate lunch and drank large amounts of coffee. The whole thing was wrapped up in about an hour and a half, so I got back home to my visitors without too much disturbance.

Sunday 30th April 2996 – Callout

As my Parents were staying over for the weekend, they offered to baby-sit for the evening while I took my wife for a night out at the cinema. Having two young children, we don’t get a lot of nights out together, so we obviously jumped at the chance. We made our way over to Didsbury and collected the tickets. I even treated her to a ridiculously overpriced lemonade, in a sort of “Does this make up for all those nights out with Mountain Rescue” way. Just as we were about to hand our tickets over on the way in, my phone went off – Callout! She rolled her eyes and back we went – I think she must be getting used to this whole thing by now. If anyone has seen “The Inside Man” could you let me know if is worth seeing!

Meanwhile, back at the hut, 9 Army Cadets were missing on the tops of Kinder. The information we had was that they had split up at the Downfall and headed in different directions. The Police helicopter thought they had a sighting of the larger group heading towards Edale before it went dark, so we dispatched a vehicle to see if they had shown up at their campsite. After a short wait at the hut we received word that the larger group had indeed managed to get themselves to their campsite, but we were still missing the smaller group of three.

Time to put my new boots on! This is usually a guaranteed way of getting any lost party to suddenly find themselves and tonight was no exception. Just as we were about to spring in to action, we got a call to say that they had turned up on the Hayfield side of Kinder, about five miles from the rest of their group. Although we had not been needed in either of the weekend’s callouts, at least it is good to know that they both ended successfully. I packed up my gear and headed off home, a little too late for the film!