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Diary - may 2007

Tuesday 8th May 2007 19:30hrs – Casualty Care Training

Due to the Bank Holiday, this month’s Cas Care training session has been put back to Tuesday. We are doing a practical session to brush up on our “Hands on” skills.

We are split up into groups and given four different skills to practice.

Our first job is to get Tall Paul (who allegedly has a spinal injury) into a Vacuum mattress. We have a new Cervical collar to try out. It’s stronger than the last one and easier to use too. We get him nice and uncomfortable in the collar, before log rolling him into the Vacuum mattress.

The vacuum mattress is a big bag of polystyrene balls, which we wrap round him and pump out the air. It then becomes a rock hard shell in the shape of his body, which would stop him moving and causing any further damage to his spine.

Next we move on to splinting. Again we practice using the various traction and vacuum splints on each other. The object of this exercise is so that we can learn to use them without getting the instruction manual out. It can be a bit off putting when you are being rescued.

Chrisse had the two resuscitation dummies for us to practice CPR and how to use the Defib machine. I went through the routine of ABC – I checked to see that the Airway was clear, then put my cheek next to the dummies mouth and my hand on his chest to check for breathing. I jumped back astonished to feel a breath coming out of the dummy, then I realized that I had been pressing down on its chest too hard with my hand!

Finally we went over how to carry out a primary survey to diagnose and treat any life threatening injuries. This involved the usual system of Airway, Breathing, Circulation. But also includes checking the vital organs and looking for major bleeds. The theme of tonight seemed to be adding a touch of realism and making sure we do things properly. This meant making sure we had accurate measurement of pulse and breathing rates, but more embarrassingly, it also meant that we had to expose our pretend casualty’s torso to see if there were any signs of abdominal bruising. This proved to be more popular with some, than others!

Saturday 12th May 2007 13:30 – Hayfield May Queen Parade

Thanks to Chris Smith from www.twentytrees.co.uk for the photography

Hayfield May Queen is one of key fundraising events of the year. Each year the team takes part in the May Queen procession and this year was to be no exception. The forecast was for intermittent rain, but when I showed up the weather it was still quite bright.

We took our place at the back of the parade and headed off behind the floats and marching bands with a landrover and a stretcher party.

All went well on the way through the village, however just as we were about to turn round and head back, the heavens opened! Obviously we were in our team issue waterproofs. Not so lucky for the little may queens in their white dresses and crepe paper flowers!

Mikey found the perfect solution. I think we may be issuing these as team kit shortly.

Sunday 13th May 2007 12:30hrs – Fundraising at Decathlon, Stockport.

This weekend seems to have a lot of fundraising events in it. We have been invited to collect at Decathlon’s outdoor season launch in Stockport. They have been very generous to us in the past, allowing us to have several collections there, which have contributed significantly to team funds. I had the afternoon slot along with Charlie, Paul, Ryan and Amanda.

Decathlon had put on an activity day, with a climbing wall from Rope Race and various competitions such as the “two minute tent challenge”. This involved erecting one of their pop up tents, getting in it with a carry mat and sleeping bag and then packing the whole lot away as fast as possible. Ryan and myself felt it was our responsibility to show the general public how our expert team training could be put to good use in this challenge and we went head to head in a dramatic display of general camping frenzy.

Needless to say despite Ryan’s best efforts and the tent refusing to go into the bag, I was top of the leader board. That is until some ten year old kid showed up and did it in half the time!

Monday 14th May 2007 19:30hrs - Probationer Stretcher Training Night

Tonight I am helping out on the stretcher training night. Mike offered to give me his account of the night as my typing fingers are getting a bit tired after the weekend.

Probationer training tonight. A few of us have been asked to help Pete show our newer members how to use the stretcher. Our stretchers dismantle so they can be carried easily to the casualty site. Regular readers will realise that the job of carrying half a stretcher usually falls to Ryan. But as Ryan is now a full member, tradition dictates that the job of carrying the heaviest bits of equipment will now fall to the newer members of the team (think of this as part of the age old tradition of apprentice initiation rights, on the lines of “pop down to stores and get some striped paint”).

So we run through the basics: I inadvertently demonstrate how not to put the stretcher together. Once that is out of the way we learn how to assemble the stretcher properly, and then how to safely strap a casualty in.

Once we have run through this a few times, we pop outside and take the stretcher for a spin up and down the Sett Valley Trail. Ryan has been volunteered to be the casualty – it is only fair that he gets a ride when you consider the number of miles the poor lad has had to carry it! The hilarity over for the evening tradition dictates that we adjourn to the pub.

Wednesday 16th May 2007 19:30hrs – Training

It’s our annual helicopter training session tonight. It involves an instructional video on how to work with the various types of helicopter. It is a mandatory requirement that you attend a helicopter training session at least once every two years or you can’t work with them. So as you can imagine, it was a fairly packed evening.

We had instructions on how to get in and out of them, how to get winched and how to set up a landing site. The use of helicopters in Mountain Rescue is on the increase, as we now have access to RAF Sea Kings, several Air Ambulances and the local Police helicopters. In recent rescues we have used all types of helicopter, so it is important to keep our training up to date. With this in mind, it has been quite a few years since we last trained with a Sea King, so rumor has it that we may be getting one for Sunday’s exercise. The crew need to keep their flying hours topped up, so they have agreed to come out and run a training session with us. Let’s hope they don’t get called to a shout instead!

Sunday 20th May 2005 10:00 hrs – Training

Life in a Mountain rescue team is made up of good times and bad. On some occasions you will be asked to sit on top of a cold lonely hill for hours at a time, on other occasions you will spend the whole night searching for someone in the rain, only to find out that they turned up the next day in Essex!

In the Yin and Yang world of Mountain rescue, today was definitely the Yang! The literal translation of Yang means “Sunny place” or “South sloping hill”, and that is exactly were we were today, lying in the grass waiting for a helicopter to arrive.

We have been working with the RAF Sea King helicopters for some time now, but our training on them had been limited to a video once a year, explaining how bad things could happen if you get too near the tail rotor. To address this problem, the boys from RAF Leconfield offered to bring their big yellow Sea King over to show us how they work.

They were due to arrive at about 11am, so we choose the flattest section of the field and Vinney got himself ready to guide it in.

Soon a faint noise could be heard in the distance, then the Sea King appeared over the hill. Vinney let off an orange smoke to show the wind direction and the Pilot headed towards him.

With a bit of agile manoeuvring he managed to put the Helicopter down right in front of Vinney. It is always a very impressive sight to see a helicopter as big as this land in front of you. The noise and downwash from the rotors has to be experienced to be believed.

The crew came out and began to show us round the Helicopter. I have to say that I was slightly disappointed to see that they didn’t all have handlebar moustaches. We had a brief look round and then split into groups. One group was shown the inside, while the other group was shown the outside (including the obligatory “head v’s tail rotor” warnings).

The inside briefing was about where to sit, how to use the seat belts and what to do in the event of a crash (I won’t do a cabin crew joke – exits here, here & here etc, as the winchman was much bigger than me, and we may meet again). He told us to practice the “brace” position we had seen on the video, which we all did perfectly, only to find out that our video was out of date and we were doing it all wrong!

He also took us through the procedures of escaping from the aircraft when it has crashed in water and is sinking. It basically involves waiting until the hull is completely full of water, pushing the windows out and then waiting in an orderly fashion while two other portly team members try to squeeze themselves through a two foot hole (I think it would be best to take a deep breath!).

Finally he told us about some new infrared equipment they had fitted for searching and that they were happy to come out and help us on major searches in the future.

We then went outside to look at the winching strops. These always look nice and secure on these “Air Sea Rescue” programs. What I didn’t realise was the only thing holding you in is the fact that you have your arms by your side – comforting.

We went through how to get in and out of the strops and to remember to let the static line touch the ground first to discharge any static the helicopter has built up. Apparently if you forget to let it discharge and grab the line, you won’t forget next time.

After lunch we moved on to the main event. In groups of six we were flown over to the top of a nearby hill. It’s a strange feeling taking off in a Sea King, it rattles unnervingly and the noise is incredible. It gets louder and louder and then suddenly the ground seems to drop away and you’re flying. We banked twice round the hilltop to look for a suitable site and then the winchman threw open the big side door and pointed to the first two members of our group. They put on the strops and moved to the doorway to be winched out on to the hill. In no time at all it was my turn. The strops were given to Lee and myself, we clipped our rucsacs on to the winch hook and we sat on the edge of the door with our legs dangling out in the air. A thumbs up from the winchman and we were hanging in mid air with ten tonnes of helicopter hovering above us. All too soon we landed on the ground, unclipped and made our way to the rest of our group who had been winched before us. All I kept thinking was ….Again!

We walked back down to the landing site just in time to see the last group loading up.

Neale, Vinney and myself waited around to give the later teams a lift back to base in the Landrovers. The Helicpoter crew, having winched the last team down, flew past, gave us a wave and headed back to RAF Leconfield. We headed back to base everyone sporting an enormous grin!

More photos....

Sunday 20th May 2007 (Contd) 17:12 hrs – Callout

Having just arrived home from the exercise, I was sat in the garden with my wife and in-laws. My wife had been kindly getting a family meal together and we were just about to sit down to eat. My phone jumped into life: “Snatch Callout – Wingather Rocks – Darren”. This meant that there was an urgent job, which probably wouldn’t last too long. As my rucsac was still packed, I jumped in the car and drove off to the incident.

When I arrived, there was already quite a few of our cars at the bottom of the crag. There was also a paramedic, an ambulance and a policeman. All on a single track road. I quickly went up to the bottom of the crag to find the team members who had arrived before me. Several of them were working with the paramedic and ambulance crew to help an elderly gentleman who had been soloing an “E1” route on the crag and had fallen off. Fortunately it looked as though he had only damaged his arm.

Our job from here was to get him on to our stretcher and carry him the short distance down over a couple of styles to the road. As we brought him down the path, more and more team members turned up, allowing us to pass him at head height over the styles and the wall next to the road.

It was a fairly quick job, so once he was in the ambulance I jumped in my car to get back to our family meal. By the time I got back, they had all finished. I can only say it’s lucky we don’t have a dog, or my dinner would defiantly be in it!

More photos....

Friday 25th May 2007 20:00hrs – Team Meeting

An unusual meeting tonight, with changes on the top table. Ken is away on holiday, so John is chairing the meeting and it is Darren’s first go as Team Leader.

Most of the officer’s reports are the usual kind of thing with the exception of Nigel, who informed us he would be standing down as Treasurer. A vote of thanks was proposed from the team for the work he has done in this role.

It was interesting to hear that the two recent collections we have kindly been allowed to carry out, at Decathlon and the Simon Yates lecture both raised a significant contribution to team funds.

After the meeting we adjourned to the pub to discuss the ups and downs of life in a Mountain Rescue team.