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Diary

Monday 2nd October 2006 19:30hrs – Casualty Care Training

It’s circulation tonight. As we arrive, we are immediately divided in to groups and thrown in to a trauma scenario. Bob has allegedly fallen down Red Brook (and has landed in the hut!). Mike has to run through the Casualty Care procedure to work out his injuries.

He follows the standard procedures and diagnoses his injuries, however Steve throws in a curveball as he announces that Bob’s vital signs are crashing. Mike realises that Bob must have internal bleeding (probably a Heamothorax – bleeding in the lung) and we advise the action we would take (mainly get a helicopter ASAP).

Once we have finished our scenarios, we move on to a full scale “chalk and talk” session, where Steve tells us all about the anatomy of the conditions we have been treating. He franticly writes down all the complicated medical names for the various conditions (and spells most of them correctly!). After three times round on our revolving blackboard, we are finally allowed out. In the usual manor, the evening ends at the pub.

Sunday 8th October 2006 09:00hrs – Exercise / Callout

Sunday morning and today is our annual Rope Rescue exercise. I get up early and get ready for a day of dangling on the end of ropes and rescuing casualties from tall cliffs. Sandwiches packed, I am just about to leave when my phone rings. It’s Steve, “Do you want a lift to the Callout?” – Huh? What callout? “There’s a Callout in Lincolnshire” he says. “You mustn’t have had the text yet.” “Err, OK. Thanks”. I let my family know about my change of plans and that I have no idea what time I will be back (no change there then!). As I stand by the window waiting for Steve to arrive, I get a text on my phone. “Callout – RV Thorne, Lincolnshire.” Oh really.

The more astute of you readers may have realised that Lincolnshire is not exactly the Himalayas. In fact the chances of finding a mountain in Lincolnshire are as good as getting a drink out of a Yorkshire man. One of the less publicised things we do is search for missing people in non mountainous areas. As we obviously have skills in locating missing people, we are often asked by the police to help them outside of our normal operating areas. In this case a woman had been out walking her dog the previous afternoon and had not returned home. The Derby and Woodhead teams had been out searching through the night and we had been asked to come in a take over from them.

Steve arrives and we set off (with a short de-tour to collect the radio he forgot to bring). We decide to take the M62 as traffic should be light on a Sunday morning. Steve takes a steady pace and we make good time. A blue van passes us, it’s Charlie, on his way to the callout. Shortly after, we are passed by a Police Volvo with full blue lights on. We assume as we are only half way there, that he is not on his way to the callout. A couple of miles later our suspicions are confirmed as we pass Charlie pulled over on the hard shoulder, in discussions with a Police officer. Apparently he was not sympathetic to the idea of rushing to a callout. Unlucky!

We arrived in Thorne just behind the two Landrovers. I called them on the radio to check the final directions. Just as we were talking there was some traffic on the control channel saying that the lady had been located. We made it to the control point and met up with the rest of the team.

We chatted about the journey over as we waited for instructions. Geoff shouted me over, we had been asked to take a Landrover to the Casualty Site to help bring her back. It wasn’t too far and we drove down a gravel track to a locked gate. I took a look at it, but it was firmly padlocked. The Landrovers would be going no further.

We met up with members of Woodhead and Derby teams who were with the lady. They came down to us to show us the way back to the Cas site and help carry some of the gear. I helped load them up with the stretcher and the cas bag, then started to get the Landrover converted so that it would take the stretcher, as Geoff left for the Cas Site.

When we travel to a remote RV we generally bring all the equipment we could possibly need and today was no exception. The back of the Landrover was completely full and it all need to be moved to allow me to drop the back seats to make room to put the stretcher in. After filling the roof rack I still had half of the equipment on the ground around me. Fortunately Chrissie and Collin arrived with a stretcher party and two more Landrovers. This gave me some extra stashing space!

They quickly headed off to the Cas Site. Twenty minutes later they all came round the corner, carrying the lady on the stretcher.

She was quickly loaded into the Landrover and taken back to control to the waiting ambulance.

The lady was taken to hospital and we put the gear back in the appropriate Landrover. By now it was 11am and too late to get back to carry on with our planned exercise. Instead we all decided to make our way for some well needed refreshments.

Well, how do you think we keep our energy levels up? I could see an opportunity for a new sponsor comming on!

Wednesday 11th October 2006 19:30hrs – Training

Tonight is our annual Winter skills training session. This is where we recap on the equipment and skills we use in the depths of winter. We also covered our techniques for night time searching. With the nights drawing in, we can expect a lot more of this coming up.

Perhaps with the run up to Christmas coming up this may be a good time to remind readers that if you are planning to carry out any of your Christmas shopping on the Internet, you can help us to raise the funds we need to run our team by using our Online shop. You can purchase most of your pressies from your favourite retailers by clicking on the “Online Shop” link on the front page of our site or click here KMRT Online Shop. We are funded entirely by donations and all of our members are volunteers, carrying out your Online shopping through our site could make a real difference to the work we do. Go on, have a look!

Tuesday 17th October 2006 18:30hrs – Callout

Having just arrived home from my daughter’s primary school Parent’s Evening, we were trying to decide what to eat that evening. The contents of our refrigerator did not inspire me, so I kindly volunteered to nip to the shops to pick up something nice. As I was about to leave the house my phone started beeping – “Callout, RV the Hut”. The nice food would have to wait for another night. I started to get ready, time to get out my winter trousers for the first time in months. As I ran around the house in the usual manor, my daughter decided it would be a great idea to help by making a sandwich for me to take. A pity she only knows how to make dry bread with a slice of ham. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts.

I arrived at the hut to see one of the Landrovers leaving to take a team out. Quite a few people had made it there before me and they were busy getting ready and collecting team search lamps. There is a problem with the computer deployment system, which I quickly sort out. Once this is done, I find out that there are three people lost on the top of Kinder. They have been out all day in thick mist and have lost their bearings. Now that it is dark, their chances of finding their own way down have drastically reduced, so they called the police and asked for our help. Geoff had managed to briefly get through to their mobile phone and they told him they were beside a large pile of stones with two stakes in it. There are many piles of stones on Kinder (and even on Bleaklow for that matter), and they are frequently changing. The best guess was that they were at Spot Height 636, the highest point on the Kinder plateau, marked by a large pile of stones. The party leaving in the Landrover earlier had been sent out to go to 636 to see if they were there. The rest of us would have to wait to see if that’s where they were. If not then we would be searching the whole of the plateau in the mist and dark. We settled in to wait. After 45 minutes I had drunk enough coffee and it didn’t look like we were going anywhere soon. There was a football match on the TV so I tucked in to my dry sandwich and watched the game to pass the time.

An other hour later, with United three goals to the good, we finally heard the radio crackle and a broken message came in to say that the walkers had been located at 636. They would be walking them back to the Landrover, which would take at least the same amount of time and we were all required to remain there on stand-by, just in-case the situation deteriorated and we were needed to take a stretcher to them. By 10pm we finally herd that group had reached the Landrovers and we could finally stand down. The Walkers were brought back to base and then given a ride back to their hotel in Edale.

Friday 27th October 2006 20:00hrs – Team Meeting

It’s the last Friday of the month, so it must be our meeting night. A relatively straightforward meeting, with the exception that we had an extraordinary general meeting first. We have decided to become an incorporated charity as we are in the long process of finding a new headquarters. We need to become incorporated to protect the members of the executive committee from loosing their houses if it all goes “pear shaped”. We kindly agreed to this understandable request.

The usual officers gave their reports on the state of the vehicles, radios, upcoming training, etc, etc. In Geoff’s Team Leaders report he updated us on some of our recent rescues including a “Thank you” card and kind donation from the people who we helped down in the mist from 636 on Kinder.

We carried on for as long as we could, until thirst drove us downstairs to the conveniently located pub!

Saturday 28th October 2006 12:35hrs – Callout

Saturday lunchtime and I am pottering around the house, doing a few jobs. Just as it looks as though my afternoon has been planned out for me my phone starts beeping. “Callout – RV Hut, Chrissie”. Oh well, looks like the jobs would have to wait.

I started the usual chase around the house to retrieve all of my bits of equipment from their chargers, clothes from their cupboards and to make some food. This seemed to take a lot longer than usual, perhaps because I was having to double check that I had everything. You see, I had just got back from a trip away with my kids where I had somehow managed to leave the bag containing all of my daughter’s things behind. I’ve never been very good at packing, hence the enormous rucsac, I just grab everything I can find and throw it in. Even so, I always have that feeling that I have left something behind and today I thought I had better double check.

Finally I jumped in the car and headed for the hut. As I arrived there was a team getting in to a Landrover, ready to go. On the past few shouts I have just managed to arrive as the team going to the Cas site had just left. I assumed that today was going to be the same, however as I walked through the door I was told to jump in and get going. We sped off down the street with blue lights flashing and me tying my boot laces in the back.

We were en-route to an incident on Lantern Pike, where a lady had a damaged ankle and could not get any further down. Geoff and Mike had already set off in the other Landrover and were with the Lady. Paul managed to impress us all with his off road reversing skills, getting as close to the Cas site as he could manage. It was now time for us to make our way on foot. We began to load up our equipment, the two halves of the stretcher and a large Cas bag. Something didn’t quite seem right and I couldn’t work out what. Then I realised, Ryan our new probationer was away on a Mountain Rescue foundation course so we couldn’t talk him in to carrying the stretcher! I guess I would have to do it myself.

We soon passed the other Landrover parked up and noticed that Geoffs off road reversing skills were not quite as good as Paul’s had been.

Still we are doing driver training on Tuesday night. Let’s hope that reversing is on the silabus!
Anyway, back to the matter in hand. A relatively short, but slippy track lead to a field wher the lady was with Geoff and her companions. As soon as we arrived we quickly got the stretcher assembled and over to the injured lady.

We soon had here loaded on to the stretcher and began the journey down the hill. There were a few tricky styles to clear, but once over these we were in a large field. As the ground was wet and the mud under foot was making it quite slippy, we took the opportunity to “sledge” the stretcher down to the bottom.

Once at the bottom we reverted to our standard stretcher carrying system.

The track at the bottom lead us to a very tight bridge, where some creative handling and a little “limboing” managed to get her across and back to the waiting ambulance.

Once she was on board the ambulance, we made our way back to the hut to see if we could hammer out the dents in the Landrover.

Tuesday 31st October 2006 20:15hrs – Driver Training

Tonight is a theory session on how to drive the Landrovers. Hamish has recently been on a 4x4 driving course with a few other team members and for the benefit of the rest of us drivers who have not had the course for a few years, he went over the theory of off road driving.

It’s an odd thing driving off road. It is the exact opposite of driving on road. You have to avoid touching the clutch or handbrake and rarely use the footbrake. It’s all gears, diff lock’s and low ratio. It’s such an unnatural thing for someone who has spent so long driving on the road. If you don’t keep practicing regularly you soon forget, so tonight’s session is appreciated.

Through out the night there are plenty of opportunities for us to analyse Geoff’s recent driving displays (see previous callout!). A collective sigh of relief went round the driver’s group that the Team Leader was the first to “prang” a Landrover. I guess it won’t be as bad when I do it now!

Later in the pub we were discussing how long we had all been driving. However there was some confusion as to whether Nigel had said it was since his 19 or 20’s or the 1920’s. Sometimes it can be hard to tell!