Kinder Mountain Rescue Team

Landrover on the track up to Edale Cross

• Type: Casualty pick up from known location.
• Location: Edale Cross
• Duration: 3 hours
• Team members: 20
• Man hours: 60

Early Sunday morning Darren rang and asked me to take the contact number as he was running in a fell race. He mentioned that he had given our number to the race organiser just in case anything happened as conditions on Kinder were still poor, with lots of snow drifts and patches of ice. Three hours later when my phone rang with the name of the said organiser, it did not take a genius to work out that we were wanted. A runner had torn his hamstring and could not move from his location, which was with 2 of the race marshals at the top of a land rover track up near the summit. Continue reading Call out: 31st January 2010

Kinder 2 having a quick break top of Sandy Heys

Kinder 2 at Kinder Gates

We all arrived early at the newly refurbished base ready for briefing for the monthly exercise, the first of the New Year.
I was called in with other party leaders for the briefing and was given Kinder 2 hill party with Hamish, Mike and Jim. We were tasked to up on to the plateau via Sandy Heys to the Downfall and then along the Kinder River to Kinder Gates searching for a party of three who had left Hayfield.
One of the party had rung the Police reporting one of their party sustaining a lower leg injury with only part of a grid reference SK08. This meant searching across the Kinder plateau and fortunately today we had two search dogs to assist us. Continue reading Not Alan’s Diary 2: Exercise 24 January 2010

Only the stretcher stopped Adi falling even deeper into the snow

Dave surveys the kit

What could be lovelier than waking up at 7am for a day out in the hills? Well there’s always waking up at 7am for the team’s Sunday exercise of course. ‘Very good visibility’  the forecast cheerily promised and then added ‘but briefly poor in snow’. Hmmm.

Today’s exercise was a search exercise. The scenario was that two trainee mountain leaders and their instructor had had a mishap on Kinder and had managed to relay a partial grid reference before their mobile signal was lost. There were thirteen of us going on the hill and we were divided into three search parties. I was in Kinder Three and we were given the task of taking up the heavy equipment with us. So for the uninitiated that is: full winter hill kit each, party kit (tent, sleeping bag, mat, party leader kit), cas bag (a really big waterproof sleeping bag ) and the stretcher. Continue reading Not Alan’s Diary: ‘How deep do you reckon that is?’ – Exercise 24 January 2010

• Location – Sandy Heys / Kinder Scout
• Time – 22:30 till 00:00
• Team Members – 2
• Man Hours – 3

I received a call at 22:30 from the residents of the lower reservoir house which is located beside the dam wall of Kinder reservoir. They had seen lights approximately 1/3 of the way up Sandy Heys. The lights had stayed stationary for about 45 minutes and then gone out. I called our deputy team leader and agreed that I, with another local team member, would take the team landrover and investigate, before initiating a full team callout. On arrival at the reservoir, we intercepted a couple descending who had been walking up Sandy Heys. They had stopped for about an hour part way up, but then decided to return because of the high wind chill and freezing conditions. We were confident that this couple were the source of the lights and so did not call the full team out.

Dave Eustace, Team Member

• Type – Extraction of patient from house to specialist ambulance
• Location – Offerton
• Time – 2130 till 2330
• Team Members – 13
• Man Hours – 26

Just as we were beginning to hear news of a thaw coming and a return to a more normal pattern of calls for assistance; I received a call from the Duty Controller to say that two ambulance crews needed help removing a patient from his house to a waiting ambulance. Once on scene, we were able to clear the pathway whilst waiting for the casualty to be made ready for moving; however the area was still very slippery and all team members were wearing their crampons as they pulled the trolley up the path to the road. Life in the team is certainly varied at the moment!

Neale Pinkerton, Deputy Team Leader

• Assist Ambulance Service. Hollingworth
• Assist Ambulance Service. Hattersley, Tameside

Today marks the seventh consecutive day of callouts for Kinder Team and in that time we have clocked up as many (if not more) jobs than we do in a typical year. We will continue to respond to any requests to assist the other emergency services, however this sustained workload is taking its toll on our finances, while team members are proving to be very resilient.

Darren Wallis – Team Leader

urban rescue

Mobile 2 on manoeuvres

Since the world awoke to a snow covered world on Tuesday 5 January, Kinder Mountain Rescue Team has been working round the clock to man our base in Hayfield and to crew our two landrovers responding to incidents throughout Greater Manchester and Derbyshire. Over 40 team members have been involved to ensure that we reach those people most in need despite the snow and ice.

Our unpaid volunteers have clocked up over a thousand man hours since the heavy snowfall begun. We’ve been in blizzards on the high peak of Kinder Scout and the treacherous, frozen parks of Greater Manchester. We’ve driven our landrovers through ice and snow to urban areas that the ambulance service could not reach, typically to the surprise of local residents who did not expect a mountain rescue team to be operating in their cul-de-sacs and housing estates. We’ve even attended a major road traffic accident on the M60.

From sledging accidents to heart attack victims, we’ve been wherever we’ve been needed; Disley, Openshaw, Bolton, Chesterfield, Stockport, Hayfield, Stalybridge, twenty-four hours a day, whatever the weather.

We’ll help you, will you help us?

This operation would not have been possible if we hadn’t decided to improve the team’s headquarters in Hayfield in 2009. The new facilities meant that our landrovers can be housed inside, stocked with the right equipment for immediate deployment. However this crucial improvement work has left the team’s finances at an all-time low and we urgently need donations to enable the team to continue operations. The team is entirely funded by donations from the public as are all mountain rescue teams.

• Assist Ambulance Service. Disley, Cheshire.
• Assist Ambulance Service. Audenshaw, Tameside.
• Assist Ambulance Service. Marple, Stockport.

Another busy day with a mix of jobs (mountain and assisting of emergency services) and another fall of snow.

Darren Wallis – Team Leader

Two team members at Moorgate during callout

• Time 17.30 – 21.00
• Location Kinder Low Trig
• Team Members 36
• Man hours 126

Following on from a week of hectic activity supporting the local ambulance services, where we have responded to 30 calls for our assistance, the team got a hill job this evening. 2 men were reported lost on Kinder in rather unpleasant weather conditions. Following phone conversations between our duty controller and the missing walkers, it was established that they were at or around the Kinder Trig Point. Ourselves, Buxton and Edale teams and SARDA were deployed to find them. Fortunately they were located fairly quickly by a party from Buxton / Edale who walked them back down to the valley.

Neale Pinkerton, Deputy Team Leader