Kinder Mountain Rescue Team

Alison in glorious sunshine after Great North Run

Alison in glorious snowstorm on a callout

As if being part of a mountain rescue team in possibly our busiest year ever wasn’t enough, KMRT’s Alison is taking part in the 2010 Asics Wilmslow Half Marathon on 28 March 2010 to raise money for the team.  She’ll be running over 13 miles (13.1 to be exact). You can sponsor Alison via www.justgiving.com/runningforrescue or to find out more about Alison’s story, click the read more link or if you are inspired by Alison’s example to get out there and fundraise yourself, check out our guide to setting up sponsorship.

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Tonight we had a session from Jon, our team Paramedic on Primary and Secondary surveys.  As Jon works on the Air Ambulances, he introduced us to some more advanced ideas on patient assessment, which they use.  Here are his thoughts on the session:

The evening consisted of two objectives, firstly was to introduce the team to the Joint Royal Colleges Ambulance Liaison (JRCALC) Patient Assessment Guidelines.   These are the pre-hospital versions of Primary and Secondary Survey in patient assessment used by all professional and many voluntary agencies in the UK, the emphasis of the Primary Survey is to identify any life threatening conditions requiring speedy intervention and evacuation.  http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/med/research/hsri/emergencycare/prehospitalcare/jrcalcstakeholderwebsite/guidelines  

 The second objective was to highlight useful techniques in the Secondary Survey to assess for several extremely common injuries that would be expected in Mountain Rescue operations, these included; Ankle Injuries and the Ottawa Ankle Rule for distinguishing between fracture and sprain http://www.nursingtimes.net/nursing-practice-clinical-research/diagnosis-and-management-options-of-ankle-sprain-injury/203809.article  and Scaphoid fractures of the wrist which are often misdiagnosed as sprains http://www.assh.org/Public/HandConditions/Pages/ScaphoidFractures.aspx

Campfour (the climbing, mountaineering and outdoor shop in Macclesfield) will donate the profits from a lecture by Andy Kirkpatrick to both Kinder and Buxton Mountain Rescue Teams. It will be held on Friday 12 March at 7:30pm (doors 7pm) and tickets cost £10 with concessions at £6 so for a great night out with proceeds going to an extremely good cause (us!), get your tickets here.

The US magazine Climbing once described Andy as a climber with a “strange penchant for the long, the cold and the difficult”, with a reputation “for seeking out routes where the danger is real, and the return is questionable, pushing himself on some of the hardest walls and faces in the Alps and beyond, sometimes with partners and sometimes alone. read more…

The Kinder Rescue Team Leader talks sheep rescues, Life on Mars and the busiest period in the team’s history. Read more here

• Type – Skiers lost
• Location- Bleaklow
• Time – 22:30
• Team members – Kinder MRT (28)
• Man hours – Kinder MRT (42)

Tonight's Training was a remote RV at New Mills Torrs

Here is a entry from Phil our Training Officer:

At first I began to wonder if the planned ‘snatch’ exercise would turn into an epic as snow was falling at a steady pace when I left work. Luckily, it didn’t last long and things cleared up for what would be an interesting scenario down in the ‘Torrs’. The basic scenario arranged by Mike & AJ was to have a casualty suffering a MI along one of the public footpaths that run through the Torrs. A passerby had raised the alarm which allowed for a rapid response party to set off and RV with other team members at a pre arranged ‘remote RV’ location. After a short search, the casualty was quickly located and treated. As temperatures were dropping below zero and the ground becoming icy underfoot, it was essential for a safe and rapid casevac to the waiting ‘paper ambulance’ and team vehicle – before retiring to the nearby pub for refreshment.

 Tomorrow the team’s current probationers will have another opportunity to braze the freezing temperatures as they’ll be having their radio communication & navigation exercise.

Heading up Sandy Heys through the snow

Sunday evening and I am just starting to think about getting things ready for the week ahead.  Those children’s shoes won’t clean themselves!  Suddenly I get a text message to say that there is a call out and to meet at base.  At this stage we don’t find out what’s going on, but as its dark and cold, my bet is for a search of the Kinder plateau.  I pack a flask of hot Vimto, just in case!

On my way to the base, I collect Darren, our Team Leader.  He jumps in the car still on the phone to the controller, sorting out which teams are going to be involved in the callout.  From the conversation, it looks like we have a man lost on the plateau.  He has followed a route through the middle of the plateau, through Kinder gates and headed for the Downfall.  However, in the mist he didn’t get to the downfall, came to a cliff and backed off, not knowing where he was.  He then phoned Mountain Rescue and supplied us with a position from his GPS.  Unfortunately, he had his GPS set to Latitude / Longitude, which is fine for sailing, but for it to mean any anything to us, we need it set to BNG (British National Grid), which give an OS map reference.  Someone had managed to run the location through a conversion program and it was telling us he was somewhere in a boulder field below the Downfall.  This didn’t really fit with the description he had given us, so we would have a few areas to search.

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• Type – Walker, Lost
• Location – Kinder Plateau
• Time – 19:40
• Duration- 5hrs 3omins
• Team Members – (kinder) 30. (Total) 89
• Man hours – 489hrs 30mins