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Diary
Tuesday 3rd May
Apparently, I haven't overstepped the mark yet, so here's May's diary (for new readers, you need to check out the end of April to understand this!). Tonight is Mike's first proper session since taking over as team First Aid Officer. The teacher in him shines through, as we are told to pick up a clipboard and an instruction sheet on the way into the meeting. It's all in the preparation! Mike gets a bit of stick, just because it's his first night, and then we get on with it.
We're starting back at the beginning with a revision of primary and secondary surveys. Rather than have a lecture, Mike shows that the government's investment in teacher training has not gone to waste by starting with interactive group work. I'm expecting us to have to line up in height order and number off, but Mike let's us sort our own teams of 3 or 4. We fill in the boxes on the sheet for SAFE approach, A (airway), B (breathing), C (circulation), D (disability), E (exposure) and secondary survey. For each section, we discuss signs and symptoms, actions and treatments. After about 20 minutes, Mike goes through the 'correct' approach.
Finally, we go back to our groups and run through the whole thing as a scenario, taking it in turns to be the casualty, first aider and observers. It's amazing how easy it is to understand the theory and how difficult it is to do when you're kneeling next to the casualty and there's two or three people watching your every move. We have a quick run through comments at the end. The main point is to talk our way through the procedure so that everyone, scribe, casualty and ourselves know what is going on. The general consensus is that it's been a useful session and that we should do more of this scenario-based work. Mike assures us that he's on the case.
ATTTP (And Then To The Pub). There's a lower turn out than usual - something to do with the Liverpool Chelsea Champions League semi-final. I'm taping the match and, miraculously, I manage to avoid finding out the score before leaving, even though it's on in the other room. It's apparent that, as a team, we need to work on our scintillating conversation and rat-a-tat repartee, as Alan sits in the middle of the group and still finds it more interesting to read the new copy of the Mountain Rescue magazine!
Wednesday 11th May
The most important thing we cover tonight is helicopter training. There was an incident recently when a member of a Lake District mountain rescue team was injured whilst being winched by a Search and Rescue helicopter. In the investigation that followed, one thing that was highlighted was the need for all team members to have received helicopter training and for full training records to be kept. There's a good attendance tonight as it's a case of no training - no flying and clearly one of the major perks of being in the team is the occasional helicopter ride. We watch a video covering the operating and safety procedures for the RAF Sea King helicopters. This is somewhat less exciting than training on the real thing, but essential none the less.
We also cover how to rig the stretcher in our landrover ambulances. It's possible to get a casualty on a stretcher into the back of the landrovers, but there are various adjustments to make to fit the stretcher in. Each landrover has a slightly different system, so we check that we can all do both.
ATTTP.
Saturday 14th May
Another key training issue besides helicopters is driving team vehicles. We have a list of named drivers who receive specific driver training. Today, six of us are going on an off-road training course. I leave the house at the crack of dawn (7.00 am) to get to the hut for 7.30. We take one of the team landrovers and John drives his own landrover to the venue. We're far to early, so check out a transport cafe to kill some time. On the plus side, it was only £3.90 for six mugs of tea/coffee. On the minus side, Alan was able to use his 'Waiter, there's a fly in my soup' line.
We arrive at the training venue and have a brief theory session and then it's to the landrovers. We split into two groups, and my group goes with Lee, the main man. We start round a 2.5 mile cross-country course, with Lee giving a short demo. Lee demonstrates going up and down some extremely steep slopes. The technique is very interesting and somewhat unnerving: low ratio, first gear, move the feet well away from the pedals and just let the vehicle drive up and down the slopes using its engine managment system. Absolutely no revving of the engine. All you have to do is steer.
I then take over and drive a few hundred metres on a wooded track. It's all going swimmingly well and I'm beginning to think that I'm a natural. Then we arrive at the first serious slope. We're going to go down it and Lee tells me to aim at a tree on the horizon. Apparently, this will stop me getting disoriented once we start going downhill. This is all very well, except that the slope is so steep that to see the tree I'd have to be looking through the roof. I decide to keep the wheels straight and just hope for the best. It's not in the manual, but it worked for me.
After what seemed like no time at all, I have to leave the driving seat to let Pete and Alan have a go. We go up down and round various slopes, all of which seem to have the landrover at an alarming angle. Lee took us through a few more 'buttock clenching' moments, but we failed to turn the vehicle over. The photo below shows how we've managed to get one of the front wheels completely off the ground. Lee's explaining to us the consequences of this and how to get out of it.
And just to show that we did get it out:
All too soon, we'd finished our session and it was time for lunch. In the afternoon, Nigel, John and Hamish went off to do winch training i.e. recovering a stuck landrover using the winch. Rashly, John allowed Alan, Pete and I to use his landrover for some extra off-road practice. We were limited to a very short circuit, no more than 5 minutes long. We spent the next hour and a half driving round it. It was good practice, but you had to have the memory span of a goldfish to make it interesting. What seemed like a lethal slope at the beginning of the day was now child's play.
After trundling round the circuit all day at walking pace, the drive home was a real adrenalin rush, even though we rarely got above 50mph.
ATTTP.
Fri 20th May
Received a callout whilst in a meeting at work. I cann't really leave the meeting and it's not exactly fast response to wait an hour for the next train and then to cycle at the other end home to pick up my kit before driving to the callout, so I decide to let the rest of the team sort this one out. Details are in the callout section.
Sun 22nd May
The exercise this Sunday is titled 'alternative locations' and is being initiated by callout. I assume that we'll be operating outside our normal area and dig out my map of the White Peak. As it turns out, I get the call at 8.45 and its an RV at the hut. We arrive gradually, having driven in from our homes. The scenario is a despondent missing person somewhere on Ollerset Moor. Pete and I are selected to be the landrover drivers, no doubt something to do with having done the off-road training course last weekend. I'm not ecstatic about this as it often means spending large amounts of time sitting around doing not very much and I rather be out with a hill party.
As it turns out, this is rather an intersting day. We have a freelance writer with us, Sue, who wants to write an article about our use of landrovers in mountain rescue for one of the monthly landrover magazines. Sue and Angus follow me along an off-road section as we drop Alan's party off at the far end of the moor. We return to laneside, where we park up awaiting further instructions. I provide a couple of photo opportunities by pumping up the extending aerial (I know that it's not size that matters, but 7 metres is quite impressive ...) and spreading the contents of my rucksac on the landrover bonnet (stop making up your own jokes!).
With immaculate timing, I'm called to pick up Neil's party. It takes 10 minutes to get the aerial down, repack my rucksac and about 2 minutes to drive to the RV. It's 11.00 and the missing person has been found just across the moor. A few comments about early finishes are quickly silenced by radio messages indicating that the cas has a serious leg injury. Neil's team become more despondent than a despondent casualty when they realise that they will be carrying the stretcher and recovery gear to the cas site. Things go from bad to worse as we hear that not only has the cas suffered a severe allergic reaction to his morphine injection, but the hill party has also discovered a number of empty drug containers at the site. There's also a difficult extraction as we need the crag gear and stretcher lowering kit as well. Wonderful.
I drive along our off-road route for the third time that day as RV with Pete in the other landrover at the entrance to the moor. In convey, we drive as far as we can up the track. After last weeks off-road course, this is all straightforward, apart from a sporty three point turn at the end to park up.
We need loads of gear - all the crag gear, plus stretcher, oxygen, splints etc. Normally, drivers stay with their vehicles, but in this scenario, Geoff decides Pete and I should help carry the gear to the cas site, luckily only 15 minutes up the hill. At least we're getting a walk in the sunshine. I sit around with Sue and Angus whilst the rest of the team extract the cas from the site on the stretcher. We came within a whisker of getting an RAF helicopter for the exercise, but unfortunately they were covering another job when we rang.
So, a stretcher carry back down to the landrovers. Pete and I go ahead to rig the landrover to take the stretcher and get the landrovers manouvered ready to drive off down the track. The stretcher arrives and is loaded in the landrover and we return to base. Pete and I return to pick up the team members not able to come back in the first run.
All in all, an interesting and eventful exercise, with lots of involvement. Luckily for Sue, and for Pete and me, the landrovers were heavily involved in the day. My earlier misgivings about being a driver were mis-placed. All that remains now is to see the write up in the magazine.
Finally, to the pub, where Allan is pleased to find that the latest copy of our Mountain Rescue magazine has arrived. Sitting outside in the car park with the magazine and a pint - life doesn't get much better than this!
Note that in the interests of taste and decency, some references to oil, photographs and landrovers have had to be censored from this diary entry!
Fri 27th May
It's the team meeting tonight and, in a break from tradition, Geoff is not the butt of this diary entry. We go through the usual officers' reports. Nigel provides his treasurer's report and everyhting is looking rosy. It's amazing how every month we seem to receive donations that we weren't expecting. This month we've had one out of the blue from New Zealand. We also had a large donation from the family of a gentleman who unfortunately died of a heart attack on Kinder recently. Two members of the team, Chris and Peter, assisted the relatives off the hill whilst the air ambulance flew the casualty to hospital. Geoff read out a touching letter from the family expressing their thanks to the team, and to Chris and Peter in particular. The team values these letters of appreciation and it is, in some sense, humbling to hear one read out.
On a less serious note, Ken is on the receiving end of a considerable amount of stick when not only does his mobile phone go off, but he proceeds to take the call. He has to explain down the phone that, not only is he in a meeting, but he's chairing it! Makes a change from 'I'm on the train'. We twiddle our thumbs whilst Ken takes his call and then it's back to business.
Mike, our new First Aid officer, is really on a role - after producing clipboards for everyone at last month's training, he's now attending team meetings with his First Aid file. Anyone doing first aid has to have the Mountain Rescue Casualty Care certificate. There's an exam and assessment at our base in a couple of weeks, which Mike is pushing. Apparently, it's 'a good day out'! Those of us who've already qualified look at him in disbelief and those that have to do the exam slightly haunted.
Meanwhile, Darts and Doms Mike (social secretary) is also on a role, with a curry and quiz night coming up soon, along with a barn dance later in the year (it's actually advertised as one of those scottish style barn dances beginning with C, but I cann't spell it, so I've translated to the English).
ATTTP. Cagoule Mike continues the Kinder team social tradition started by Alan, by reading from cover to cover a leaflet about how to get your boots re-soled. Apparently more interesting than the conversation flowing around him!
Just a remainder too the dairy groupy's that their is a prise at the end of the the year for the person whom has spoted the most speling and gramer misteaks in the the dairy. To get warmed up, email me with the number of mistakes in the last sentence (if you're not in double figures have another look)! By the way, don't forget to look back in previous sections as sometimes pictures arrive later than the text.
ATTTCH (And Then To The Curry House) - conveniently located in the other
room of the pub.