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Diary - January 2009
Monday 5th January 2009 19:30hrs – Casualty Care Training
First night back after a quiet New Year break. We started the evening with a vote on approving the expenditure to change our rope rescue system. We have been using the “Rigging for Rescue” system for several years now, but the team has decided to switch to the “Oldham method” of rope rescue. This is a system designed by the Oldham team, which has a more flexible approach.
We then moved on to practicing our Primary Surveys, a method of quickly identifying and treating life threatening injuries. It was a good chance to get the equipment out and have a practice.
Saturday 11th January 2009 20:00hrs – Christmas Meal
Our Christmas meal is traditionally held in January as we were called out too many time in the past when we held in it in December. This year took place in the White Lion in Disley. Where we had a meal followed by a talk from an author of walking books.
After the meal the staff at the White Lion kindly presented us with a cheque for £252 which they had raised over the past few weeks.
Wednesday 14th January 2009 19:30hrs - Training
Here is a diary entry from Phil:
Tonight’s training concentrated on the teams radio communications.
This is always a difficult session to run, especially as there is a lot of theory and soon becomes a typical class room session. In the main, our use of the radio communications comes through the various exercises and on actual call outs. However, every now and again we need to brush up on the more mundane bits such as correct use of voice procedure, pro-words, using & managing links, record logs keeping etc.
Tonight’s session was split into three groups, rotating every 40 minutes or so. John, the team’s Communications Officer (stuck in the relative chilly environment of our team base just to make it more realistic) concentrated on the actual types of hand held radios, base stations and mobile sets that we operate. Paul (again to add some realism of usually being stuck in a warm vehicle, was located in the warm environment of the local pubs function room) concentrated on the principles of using the mobile link stations and repeaters along with identifying our recommended locations to position these sites during an incident on our patch. As team’s Training Officer (I took a management decision and also located myself in the pub) concentrated on the types of message format, voice procedures, standard call signs and more common pro-words.
Afterwards, everyone regrouped for usual social gathering downstairs in the bar. At least John could thaw out now.
Sunday 25th January 2009 – Exercise
An early start saw me bleary eyed at the hut by 8am. Clearly the rest of the team had been having trouble sleeping, as I was almost the last person there. I was allocated in the last team to go out, which meant that we would be waiting behind to take any extra equipment needed when the casualty was found.
Things went from bad to worse, when I was told that as I was the only available member of the drivers group left, I would have to wait at the hut all day, in case I was needed to drive the Land Rovers.
I was just about to settle in for the day, when I was unexpectedly told that I wasn’t needed at base and could go out to lug some heavy gear up a very steep hill!
We were sent up Sandy Heyes to meet with the other teams and help with the stretcher carry.
After a lung bursting walk up Sandy Heyes, we arrived to meet the other teams who had been waiting in the cold and wind for our equipment, to get the next phase of the rescue started.
The casualty was brought up the slope on a stretcher, which was protected by the rope we had just carried up. We then started the carry off. The top section of Sandy Heyes is steep, so we sledged the stretcher down with a back up rope attached, to stop it getting out of control. After this section, it was a long carry off, making me realize why this is called an “exercise”!
Anyway, here is Phil’s events of the day:
Phil: Today’s exercise was organized by Darren & Dave and had several objectives. The primary objectives were ‘steep ground work’ and ‘stretcher carrying’. It’s been a while since we’ve had a good long carry off, so the practice will come in handy (especially for the newer members).
The team started arriving at base at 08.00hrs.
The scenario was simple – two experienced walkers had failed to return the previous evening. Control had deployed several teams that would allow Kinder team to concentrate in the William’s Clough and Sandy Heyes areas. Search Dog Ian along with his faithful navigator Ryan were also deployed.
It wasn’t long before sections were deployed. As training officer I knew the basic outline for the exercise, so it was probably by no coincidence that I was put in the ‘heavy equipment’ section (Kinder 2). So we would have the un-envious task of lugging the stretcher, gasses, vacuum splints, cas bag, along with hill party kit up Sandy Heyes to an RV point up on the edge path.
Other sections were searching directly up William’s Clough (Kinder 1) and the Three Knolls (Kinder 3) path up to the downfall. The idea being, that at some point we’d all RV around the top of Sandy Heyes.
As it happened, about a quarter of the way up Sandy Heyes our party, led by Mike, happened upon a walker (KMRT Pete) who said he’d seen a body (nice way to describe his sister) in the gulley and was on his way to raise help. Mike quickly had the casualty site organized and got some information out of the casualty before they drifted into unconsciousness. This was the first of two casualties, so it wasn’t going to be a short exercise! Steve & Dan soon had the injury’s assessed and appropriate treatment given. It was decided that an urgent evacuation was required. (hopefully with the aid of that fictional ‘paper helicopter’, if not it we’d have to wait for extra man power before beginning the stretcher carry). Our casualty had a suspected spinal injury, broken lower leg, hypothermia and was still unconscious. Luckily we had all the appropriate gear and we were able to stabilize the casualty and begin the short stretcher carry to a suitable LZ and RV point for additional teams should a full carry off be required (it’s not very often the stretcher party finds the casualty).
Around this time, Search Dog Ian had a find towards the top of Sandy Heyes. The party’s coming in from the Three Knowls and William’s Clough would soon be on scene.
Just as our additional help was arriving, we got confirmation that the ‘paper helicopter’ would soon be arriving and that we could redeploy with all the heavy equipment to the second cas site.
About three quarters of an hour later we were also at the second cas site.
We had just enough time for a quick brew and bite to eat before loading the
casualty (yes it was Nigel again, an ex-team member. He’s becoming very
careless these days).
This time the injuries were just as serious – broken tibia and fibula,
hypothermia and shock so another rapid evacuation needed. Unfortunately on
this occasion the cloud base was low which meant helicopters were not available
so we’d have to resort to good old stretcher carrying.
Me: Here is a short video to show you how the day went. It was very windy at the top, so apologies for the wind noise, but I think it helps you understand what it was like up there. There are a couple of learning points for me in this video. Firstly, that YouTube gives me very little control over the still frame it displays before you play it (see below) and secondly that I need to decide what I am going to say before I start filming (count the number of “Errm”s). Oh yes and a special thanks to Bernie for his clown performance in the background!
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