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Diary

Saturday 5th November

We go off to High Lea Park in New Mills this evening to help out with the town bonfire and firework display. Our job is to collect donations for the event at the various entrances to the park. Loads of people turn up and see a huge bonfire and a fantastic firework display by Darren, our Deputy Team Leader, who runs his own big-bangs company, Quicksilver.

Monday 6th November

Tonight's session covers bandaging and splinting. We're split into groups and go through signs and symptoms of fractures and dislocations, immobilisation, pain reduction and evacuation with Steve. This is the team doing the theory bit - all very earnest:

I feel honour bound to mention that we use this room because we need the space for the practical. It's just an unfortunate coincindence that there's a bar in the background - honest!

The studious air disappears as we get down to the practical. Steve falls off his chair and sustains an instant fracture of his lower leg. We sort this out by puting his leg in the inflatable splint. In a medical mystery, Steve's break moves up his leg to a broken femur. We rustle up the traction splint and apply that. In a strange case of infectious fractures, half the group develop sundry breaks of wrists, arms, shoulders, collar bones and skulls. By a stroke of good luck, we've all brought a triangular bandage and so can apply the appropriate sling or dressing. Here, Lofty demonstrates that the teams' bandaging skills are so good that, even with a fractured skull, not a drop of blood escapes the bandage.

And then to the pub (conveniently downstairs).

Wednesday 16th November

An unheard of turnout tonight. Never have I seen so many keen and eager faces, waiting expectantly for the training session to begin. This may or not be related to the issue of a radio each. Since moving to the hi-band radios last year, we've increased the numbers of our radios and now have enough for one each. John goes through a refresher on the operation of the radios and eventually gets to the highlight of the evening, handing out a goody bag of radio, spare battery and charger. There's lots of rustling and beeping as we all check out that we have all the bits and that they work.

ATTTP

Sunday 20th November

Today's exercise is difficult extractions, in other words getting casualties out of awkward spots. The exercise is by callout, which always occurs around 9.00 in the morning. I'm ambling round the house at 08.00, half-watching Man Utd v Charlton on the Match of the Day repeat and half thinking about putting the kettle on when my phone goes off. To keep us on our toes, we've been called at 08.10. I grab some breakfast, sort a flask and de-ice the car before setting off the Hayfield.

It turns out that the Yates' have had some kind of accident in the Fairbrook Clough area. For a Peak Park Ranger, Dave certainly has his fair share of troubles. Regular readers will recall that it was only this March he was lost in the Kinder River in the dark - check out the video nasty in the March diary if you cann't remember. Next time you're out, if you see a loud, short chap singing Christmas carols, please point him in the direction of Hayfield. We'll take it from there.

I'm allocated to a party of 8, going with Geoff by car to the Snake Inn and then walking up to the Clough. We unload the cars at the roadside and look despondently at the horrendous amount of kit that we need to carry: ropes, lowering kit, first aid kit. I put the oxygen kit and the spare cylinder in my sack. We're soon on our way.

As we walk up the first slopes, I'm puffing and panting under the load. It occurs to me that what we really need is a set of mules to carry the gear. In their absence, we potter along the path to Fairbrook Naize (Paul & Charlie - that's a beer you owe me!).

Chris storms off in front and we trail along in his wake. After a while we spot the cas at the bottom of a buttress. Hamish and Chris approach from below, whilst the rest of us climb to the plateau ready to help from above.

Peter and I are allocated radio duty and have to wander off to the windiest part of the plateau to get good reception. Excellent weather for brass monkeys. It turns out that the casualty has broken femur, possible pelvic/spinal injuries and is unconcious. Chris and Hamish stabilise him. Meanwhile, Kinder 2 have found the other casualty in a much easier location, with less severe injuries.

We radio for a helicopter, but sadly all we get is a paper air ambulance. Peter and I are called to help extract our casualty - we carry him round the base of the buttress, clipped to a safety line. I've never seen Dave so quiet as when he glimpsed the drop below! Once he's evacuated, our party moves to the second casualty site and helps in the evacuation.

For once on exercise, we haven't had a big search. On the other hand, there's a huge amount of kit to carry and as you can see, Alan has a sense of humour failure underneath the vac mattress:

And just to prove that it's not all serious (!), Steve puts a bid in to be the KMRT Christmas Fairy!!

Vote now. Text 'Steve' to Strictly Come Dancing KMRT special!

Friday 25th November

It’s our team meeting tonight and we go through the business in the usual running order. A couple of members admit to having read the minutes of the last meeting, and so these are confirmed. It’s been a good month for fundraising and Nigel announces some significant donations from individuals. Some have a connection with the team, for example, the lady whose husband sadly died on Kinder last year as raised around £2000 for the team, and others who found us through the website. Thanks to everyone.

There are other important announcements, like the labels on the hi-vis vests have been changed from First Aid to Casualty Care (thanks Mike), the landrover passing its MOT etc.

There’s what is now becoming a tradition of a bit of argy-bargy over the hut weekend, smoothed over neatly by Chris, displaying his mediation skills.

We retire to the pub, where I get congratulations from Paul for slipping the words ‘potter’ and ‘mule’ into the diary entry. Not too many congratulations from Steve, who has clearly not seen his picture yet in Sunday’s entry.

Sunday 27th November

In the best traditions of mountain rescue, Pete and I go to the Quiet Woman, a stone flagged pub serving real ale, with folk musicians playing in front of the open fire. We’re also out phone contact. We set off home at around 16:00 and as we come out of Buxton, both our phones go off. A callout that started at 14:00. We grumble all the way back to Hayfield about not having any callouts of ages and then missing the one that we do get etc etc. As we approach the village, I ring the hut to see if they need us. I’m surprised to find that they do, so Pete drops me off, I quickly get changed and go the hut.

A lady has suffered a broken leg. She’s up at the downfall and we cann’t get a helicopter because of the poor weather conditions up there. It’s going to be a long stretcher carry back down to the road. Pete, Hamish, Dave and I go up to the Filter House in the landrover and set off up Sandy Heys to meet the stretcher party coming down. Hamish tells us that he’s had a few sporty moments already driving the landrover up to Edale Cross.

We get almost to the top of Sandy Heys before meeting up with the stretcher party. It’s very steep and slippery on the way down, with a combination of mud and ice. However, we manage to get the casualty down safely to the waiting ambulance at the road, but it’s taken us until 19:30; a long and difficult carry off.

We have an interesting ride back to the hut in the back of Darren’s van and it takes another hour for us to get tidied up at the hut and have the debrief. I set off home at 20:30 to find some tea.

Monday 28th November

I receive a phone call from Geoff, who is trying to find some KMRT members close to Hayfield for a quick job in New Mills, carrying a lad from a snowy field to a waiting ambulance. Sadly, I'm still at work in Salford, so cann't help out.