Kinder Mountain Rescue Team

If you go into the woods today

Mist, drizzle and low cloud rolled over Windgather Rocks as I approached the remote RV (rendez-vous point) for today’s exercise. Not quite the weather I had ordered (thick fog, torrential rain) but it would be sufficient to set the mood for the day.

The scenario for today’s exercise was a straight forward MISPER (missing person) search. But as I’m not one for making it easy I threw in dense forest with lashings of steep hilly terrain for added interest.

As the team arrived and search parties formed, the exercise story unfolded. A local middle aged female suffering stress and depression with a history of drug and alcohol use had gone missing some 36 hrs earlier. Other teams had been out searching prior to Kinder’s deployment. The area Kinder had been tasked to search would prove tough going for the limited resources available, but hopefully we’d be successful. read more…

Driving through the smelly water

The drivers group were wheeled out again for our bi-annual 4×4 refresher training.  This was hosted by Corporate Pursuits, a professional off-road instruction company.  They taught us to drive up steep hills, down steep hills and through smelly water.  We managed to drag our vehicles through impassable terrain and were proudly upholding the reputation of the team’s off road driving ability, right up to the point where Vinny got his vehicle stuck in the smallest puddle on the site.  We were all so proud!

Broken arm? - Not for long with our expert training!

Another good training session tonight.  We were given a series of scenarios and were asked to practice using various items of kit to deal with the injuries.

We spent the evening practicing with vacuum splints, traction splints and extraction devices.  Very enlightening.

I still have trouble with a triangular bandage!

The casualty receives pain relief before being loaded on to the stretcher

I had just arrived home after the day’s exercise to suddenly get a callout text message on my phone.  The message said it was a remote RV in Bollington.  I threw my rucksack in the car and headed off.  I managed to get to Bollington quite quickly, but had a bit of trouble with the directions at the end.  I got to the agreed location to find Dave waiting for us to send us on to an RV about half a mile further on.  I managed to drive passed the RV and had to turn round to make my way back.  read more…

Mike - Crashed at the bottom of a crag

Sunday exercise seemed to come round quickly this month. We turned up at the hut on the hottest day of the year, trying to second guess where the exercise would be held. We aren’t allowed to hold exercises on the top of Kinder in the summer months, as there is a program going on to protect nesting birds on the plateau. If it’s an emergency, there’s no problem with access, but the National Trust ask us not to tramp around on the tops during the summer months….which is fair enough, I suppose. My bet was on a search of Ollerset moor, as this wasn’t one of the mandatory sessions, such as Helicopters, or Rope Rescue, so a search was most likely. read more…

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

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.