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Diary - May 2008

Tuesday 6th May 2008 19:30hrs – Casualty Care Training

Cas Care was on a Tuesday this month, due to the Bank Holiday. Dr Ian was with us again to carry on medical training. These are excellent sessions, which are well attended. Ian works through the various elements of the Casualty Care manual and tonight we were on Circulation. The evening was the usual blend of technical medical information, mixed with the odd gruesome anecdote here and there.

Saturday 10th May 2008 13:00hrs - Hayfield May Queen Parade

Every year the team takes part in the local May Queen parade. We took one of our Land Rovers and the stretcher. This year, Colin’s son volunteered to be in the stretcher, which was defiantly a lighter load than we have had over the past few years. Here are a couple of photos from the day.

Saturday 10th May 2008 contd... Limited Callout

Dave's guest entry:

The team had just taken part in the Hayfield May Queen parade and a few local team members had stayed behind to help tidy up the display field. Taking tents down and carrying a seemingly infinte number of chairs from the field up a short but sharp incline to the scout hut. As I was walking down the slope for what seemed like the twentieth time, Nigel, one of our Deputy Leaders, told me we had a limited callout. He just needed two people to take a landrover up to Edale Cross and pick up a casualty there.

This seemed like an excellent excuse to leave the chair carrying to others, so Pete and I made our excuses and left for the hut. I picked up the landrover, whilst Pete sorted our gear: a hill party kit, vaccum splints, casualty care kit and entonox for pain relief. The job sounded like a straightforward taxi call to Edale Cross, but it's a long drive back if we did need some gear, so better safe than sorry.

An easy drive in the beautiful sunny weather up to Edale Cross. All those tricky rock steps seemed so much easier than the last time I did this in the snow and ice (callout 21-12-2007). We arrived to find the casualty with another member of her party and the Peak Park Ranger waiting at Edale Cross. Pete did an assessment of the casualty and she was fine apart from a reoccurance of an old knee injury. I got on the radio to base to let them know that a full team callout was not needed. We loaded everyone into the landrover and drove back to Hayfield.

All in all, the most relaxed callout I've been on for a while - it's so much easier in the sunshine than the mist, snow and and night.

Wednesday 14th May 2008 19:30hrs – Training

Tonight is one of the best attended training sessions of the year. We are watching the Helicopter safety video in preparation for the upcoming Sunday exercise where the RAF are bringing in one of their Sea King Helicopters. The Sunday exercise will be a familiarisation session hopefully followed by the chance to practice being deployed from the Helicopter by winch. If you haven’t watched the safety video, you can’t fly in the helicopter, so as you can imagine, it was standing room only.

Sunday 25th May 2008 09:00 hrs – Helicopter Familiarisation Exercise

It has been a very quiet few months recently. A spell of pleasant weather had meant that our usual “lost in the mist” callouts haven’t happened and fortunately for the general public there have been no injuries on our patch either. So it has been a couple of months of polishing my kit and trying to remind myself that I am still part of a rescue team. The big reminder of the year is the annual Helicopter exercise, where we get a visit from our friends in the RAF with their big yellow Sea King. Needless to say that this is the best attended exercise of the year. It’s surprising how the promise of a flight in a helicopter creates an outstanding turnout.

There was a lot of standing around (again) at the start of the day, as people who had missed the safety video had a chance to catch up. Dave had planned a mini exercise to fill the morning as the Helicopter wasn’t due to arrive until about 1pm.

Then we were summoned into the briefing room. A sheepish looking Dave broke the news that no one wanted to hear…..the helicopter wasn’t coming! We are all aware that a training session is the lowest priority for the RAF and that more often than not they have to go to rescues instead, but it is always a little disappointing when they don’t show up. I guess last year we were lucky to have them arrive. Usually when they don’t turn up it is because one of the helicopters from that squadron has had to go on a rescue and the other has to stay behind on stand-by. However today it was due to the fact that the ageing Sea King had failed its air worthiness three times that day, so it was grounded. I suddenly didn’t feel very much like flying anyway.

So it was back to plan B. Dave’s mini exercise was put in to action, with four of the team in a horrible mountain bike accident on one of the local tracks (which just happened to be next to where we were planning to land the helicopter – just in case). It was a good substitute exercise and thoroughly tested both our medical and organizational skills, with the added bonus of being over just after lunch. Here are a few photos of the day.

More Photos....

Friday 30th May 2008 08:00hrs – Team meeting

Another month, another meeting. We ran through the details of the team business over the last month. Most of the meeting involved the usual updates about changes to procedures and where we have spent the team funds. The exception to this was a large vote of thanks to Janet who was standing down from her role as fundraising officer. A difficult and time consuming job, which she has carried out excellently. Meeting over, and we adjourned to the pub downstairs.