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Diary - July 2008
Here are the photos from last month’s probationer’s final exercise, which is the end of the Probationary training course. The exercise took place on Lantern Pike, and was mostly a success, which the exception of some dodgy stretcher assembling.
Monday 7th July 2008 19:30hrs – Casualty Care Training
Unfortunately due to the equipment being unavailable at the last minute, tonight’s training session had to be cancelled. Never mind, it meant a night off!
Wednesday 9th July 2008 19:30hrs – Rope Rescue Theory Training
Next Sunday’s exercise is the annual Rope Rescue practical exercise, so tonight we are going through the theory. There are three areas we have to practice. Our first stop is with Howard in the car park outside the hut, where we practice setting up the “big knot” which we use as a belay. Lofty and Chris were inside running through the lowering package where we put the system together and then switched it over to set it up for raising the stretcher. Finally we practiced tying all those obscure knots we haven’t tied since last time we practiced this.
Tuesday 15th July 2008 12:50hrs – Callout
I was working in Newcastle today, so when a text arrived at lunchtime announcing a Callout, there was no way I was going to make it.
The team was called to an incident near South Head where one of a group of children on a school walking trip had slipped and injured his back. There was some confusion as to their whereabouts as the teachers were unsure of their location when they phoned the incident in.
Because of the nature of the injury the Ambulance control dispatched a Helicopter, which managed to locate the group and airlift the young man to hospital. The rest of the group were in no trouble and were able to carry on with their walk, so the team was stood down shortly after the helicopter left.
Friday 19th July 2008 16:50hrs – Callout
I had just finished work and was going out of my front door with my family to take the kids to their swimming lesson, when I received a callout text message. I quickly changed my plans, got my gear together and headed out to the hut.
When I arrived a message on the board said that five people were lost somewhere near Kinder Low Trig Point. A team of four had been sent out to their estimated location. I was quickly put into a team with another three people to follow them. Our job was to back up the first team in case they needed more equipment and to provide an extra search team if they weren’t where they we thought they would be.
Nigel drove us up the track to Edale Cross, the highest point we could be deployed from. The mist was very low down the hill today and it was making the track very slippy. It took a few goes to get the Land Rover up the bad rock step on the track. The first attempt resulted in a grounded front diff and us having to push it back on to its wheels.
Eventually we reached the top of the track and were deployed out in to the mist. Not long after we set off we heard on the radio that the first team had found the missing people at the Kinder Low Trig Point and were about to walk them off.
We continued towards them just in case they needed our equipment, but unknown to us, they had decided to come back down the other track and had passed us. A quick radio call later and we realized what had happened. All that was left was for us to head back to the Land Rover for a ride back down. When we arrived back at Edale Cross there were two of the missing people sat in the Land Rover waiting for us.
They were treated to a bouncy ride back down and after they had dried out at the hut, Bernie kindly offered them a lift back round to Edale to catch their train.
Sunday 20th July 2008 08:00 hrs – Rope Rescue Exercise
After an evening out at the team barbeque (kindly hosted by Amanda and Steve), it was an early start for this exercise….which I managed to get wrong. I arrived at the hut, just as the briefing had finished and everyone was heading out.
We were off to carry out our annual rope rescue exercise, which is one of our mandatory training sessions, so it was well attended. The location for the exercise was on the steep ground next to the Kinder reservoir, which meant that we could also include Water Hazard Awareness in a kind of two for one deal!
We started out by hammering stakes in to the bank to create a belay, and
rigging
the stretcher lowering package.
I was then lowered down to collect “Ruth”, our new casualty dummy, and attached her on the stretcher to be raised back up.
Without meaning to be critical, I think she could use losing a few pounds, as I had a bit of trouble loading her on to the stretcher before we set about raising her. Fortunately the guys at the top were using a pulley system as they had to raise both Ruth and me. Well, I wasn’t going to walk up!
Next we went on to have a go at a similar scenario, except this time we had to lower a fully loaded stretcher (Charlie was attached to it), and then raise it, but without any of the hardware we had used in the previous scenario. Last time we used a Petzl ID to raise the stretcher, but with a bit of lateral thinking, we attached a prusik pulley system to the main line and used prusiks on the backup line to lock it off as we reset the main line. All that was left was for us to run up and down the hill with the rope as Charlie and the stretcher were slowly eased up the slope.
Finally we went on to our bonus section of rescuing people from the Reservoir. This involved a bit of theory (how not to get pulled in to the water), followed by a bit of reaching with our log pole reachy thing.
It was then on to the main event of practicing with our throw lines. The idea is to get the person in the water to make a “V” with their arms with their head in the middle and to throw the line through the middle. Now it may have been the years of Basketball training in my youth, but every time I aimed for the middle of the “V”, where his head happened to be, I seemed to get a perfect hit. I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t pleased with the accuracy of my throwing!
After we had finished our throwing we packed up for an early finish. Well most of us did. I had to go back to the hut to spend an hour and a half updating our Memory Map, digital mapping software, which decided it needs a full re-install every year. I’ll look forward to doing this again next year!
Tuesday 22nd July 2008 17:00 hrs – Callout
Today I had been working from home. It was also my wife’s birthday, so at the end of the day, my kids talked us in to taking her out for something to eat. I loaded everyone into the car and had just set off down the road, when I received a text message – “Callout, Windgather Rocks”. My wife looked at me with the face of someone who is now used to having all her plans ruined by Mountain Rescue and said “Come on, we’ll go out another time”. To say I was the least popular Dad on the drive back home was a little of an understatement!
I sent a reply text and quickly packed my gear before heading out. As I am one of the drivers, I rang Darren, the team leader, to check if any of the Land Rovers needed collecting. I live about ten minutes from where we garage the Land Rovers and there are a few people who live closer, so I generally wait until I am going out of the door before I check in. The vehicles were sorted, so I jumped in my car, waved goodbye to my crying children and set off.
As I arrived at Windgather, I could see the Air Ambulance at the top of the cliffs. An Ambulance paramedic was first on scene and he had immediatly called in a helicopter.
I headed up to see if I was needed, but the casualty had already been loaded by a few members of our team who arrived before me. The injured man was a climber who had slipped and injured his lower leg. The Air Ambulance quickly took off and flew the man to hospital.
All that was left was for me to head home and face the music….again!