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Diary - March 2007

Friday 2nd March 2007 20:00hrs – Team Meeting

The February team meeting has ended up in March for some bizarre reason this month. We seemed to rattle through the reports in record time. February hadn’t been very busy, so there obviously wasn’t too much to say.

The main event was at the end where a suggestion had been made to discuss some changes to the team constitution. In the end we had a vote and decided that the majority of the team were happy to keep things as they are.

Monday 5th March 2007 19:30hrs – Casualty Care Training

Mikey and Neal are running tonight’s session. It is on Primary and Secondary surveys. This is a method of assessing casualties and dealing with any life-threatening injuries. It involves checking the key systems of Airway, Breathing & Circulation. Once this is done, we then look for other injuries in the secondary (and more detailed) survey.

Mikey gave us the theory and Neal demonstrated the practical on an unfortunate Ryan. You would have thought they could have found someone else to pick on now that he is a full member!

We then went on to have a go ourselves. We split into groups and began poking and prodding each other. There is no room for shyness in these sessions, as they are defiantly “hands-on”.

Soon it was my turn to be the casualty. Dave and Bob did their best to put me at ease, but I decided it must be a scary thought to be confronted by this sight for real!

Later in the pub, Geoff took us through all the extras he was thinking about getting for his new motorbike. Yaaaw, is that the time already!

Wednesday 14th March 2007 19:30 hrs – Training

Tonight’s training session is on Vehicles, or more precisely, how to load the stretchers into them. But before we can start on this we have a small matter of a vote to get through to decide if we would like to back Bob’s bid to represent the team as a Mountain Rescue controller. In the Peak District, Controllers are the people who act as a liaison with the police and organise the teams and resources involved in the job. Bob is a very experienced team member and the team is happy to support his bid.

The rest of the evening involves practicing converting the Landrovers from this:

To this:

There is a lot of fiddling to get all the gear out of the back of the Landrover and the Stretcher in and secured. We all have a play, until we are happy with how to do it, and then it’s an early finish and off to the pub!

Sunday 18th March 2007 - Callout

I was not involved in this callout, so here is an account by Janet of what happened:

It was lunchtime and Mother's Day and I was basking in the glories that are motherhood and grand-motherhood when the phone went. It was Geoff to say that he needed 2 drivers to go to Edale Cross and rendezvous with Edale MRT as he and Chrissie were out shopping in Stockport!.

Apparently they were monitoring the Edale Skyline Fell Run and had 3 fell runners who were suffering from mild hypothermia and needed taking off the hills. As both Nigel and I are 'drivers' we asked our daughter, son-in-law and grand daughter if they minded if we disappeared.........and got changed and left. Our grand daughter wanted to come and 'help save people' but at 2 years old she is a little young just yet!

We picked up both Land Rovers from their usual parking place in the village and proceeded up the Edale Cross track. Every time I drive up there it gets worse and today was no exception, and by the time we had arrived at the top of Jacob's Ladder where the casualties were my knuckles were well and truly white!! Once we had arrived it became clear that the casualties now numbered 6 and that a couple were worse than the rest. I took three wrapped in cas bags down to our HQ and Nigel followed on behind with the other three and Edale's doctor.

Once down at the hut we were met by Geoff and Chrissie, cups of tea, lots of sympathy and (more importantly to the runners) dry clothing. As soon as the doctor was satisfied that none of the runners needed hospital treatment Chrissie and Nigel ferried them all back to Edale. (I was let off as it WAS still Mother's Day).

On the way back from Edale on the Rushup Edge road and with the weather having worsened somewhat Nigel came across an accident that had just happened. A pickup with 2 passengers had rolled several times and landed in a ditch. The police were called and because of the blue lights on our vehicles Nigel was asked to stay until they arrived. He gave 1st Aid and a warm Land Rover interior to the 2 men until relieved.

Friday 30th March 2007 19:30 hrs – Team Meeting & AGM

Traditionally our Annual General Meeting is held at a different location to our regular team meetings. So this year’s was held at the Conservative club in Hayfield. There was a review of the year from the main committee members followed by elections for the Exec positions for next year. Most of the existing officers were elected unopposed with the exceptions of Secretary and Casualty Care officer, where Pete and Mike were standing down due to other commitments. Chris and Colin were duly elected into the roles – best of luck to you.

The AGM was directly followed by our March team meeting. Chris took up his new position on the “Top table” and we rolled straight in to a round up of March’s business. It was mostly the usual stuff and we got through it quite quickly as March had been quite a quite month. There was a nice letter from a lady fell runner we had set off to search for in the January snows. We were stood down quite quickly from this search as the lady and her friend turned up not long after we set off. But it was good to hear her side of the events and how it had come close to being a full scale search in horrendous conditions. She had decided to kindly carry out some fund raising for us after the event and was explaining the story she had relayed to her friends.

After the meeting closed, finding ourselves in the function room / bar, we felt it would be rude of us not to pass on our custom to the host. So we did!