Page 22 - AMA Summer 2024

MOUNTAIN RESCUE ›
FROM SOLDIER TO RESCUER:
SERVING WITH EDALE
MOUNTAIN RESCUE TEAM
ABob Tonkins
fter 24 years in the Regular Royal Engineers and an overlapping 9 years in the Territorial Army, 4 years in Cambridgeshire ACF, 2 years FTRS and 12 years in defence industry, I found myself
heading into full-time retirement during Covid and settling in the Peak District in Castleton. Why Castleton? Well, it’s not in the overcrowded south-east, it is in the centre of the Peak District and our village of 650 inhabitants has 7 pubs kept open by visitors occupying the other 3,000 beds in the village. In the Army, I was a JSML(S), and a JSSEL in addition to other qualifications such as SPA. I was able to use these qualifica- tions to lead and teach at Liverpool University OTC and at Cambridge- shire ACF in later years. I’ve never been at the forefront of big-league expeditions or achievements, but I’ve always recognised the outdoors as the amazing vehicle for individual training and development which we all know it to be.
Since arriving in the Peak District, I’ve undertaken a different and very exciting journey which AMA members might be interested in and might, one day, get involved in. Soon after moving to Castleton, I contacted Edale Mountain Rescue Team (EMRT) who are based in the next village to see if I could be of assistance. I have some mountain experience, I can teach, I can train, I can write, I could be a training casualty (elderly gent with chest pains sounds about right). But actually, I was offered the opportunity to train as a full team member (FTM). You’ll understand that I leapt at the chance. This short article is to describe my experience with the team over the last 3 years and might, perhaps, encourage others to follow this route in due course.
EMRT is one of 6 teams, part of Peak District Mountain Rescue Organi- sation (PDMRO). There are 47 teams in Mountain Rescue England and Wales (MREW). More in Scotland and in Northern Ireland. Add Cave Rescue and Search and Rescue Dogs Association (SARDA), Lowland SAR, RAF SAR and Police Scotland MRT, there are approximately 14,200 operational volunteers in 637 SAR organisations. And think about this; most of what we do is to support people who are undertaking leisure activities: from serious and highly skilled climbers who have an accident to family days out escaping the city and those pursuing the ultimate selfie for Instagram in their active-wear and eyelashes. We’re busy, with 485 incidents across PDMRO in 2023 of which 157 (about one third) of the incidents were in the EMRT area. Our area covers Mam Tor in the West to the M1 in the East. It includes Edale and part of Kinder
We’re busy, with 485 incidents across PDMRO
in 2023 of which 157 (about one third) of the incidents were in the EMRT area
Scout, the Hope Valley, the Derwent Reservoirs and many of the crags; Stanage, Bamford, Burbage, Froggat and Curbar. But it also extends across the city of Sheffield which has a number of parks and recreation areas where people occasionally get into difficulty.
Due to the relatively benign nature of the terrain and proximity of roads and tracks our rescues (or ‘snatch’ in the vernacular) are of relatively short duration. Unless on Kinder, we rarely see the extended operations more familiar in Scotland, the Lakes and Eryri. But because of the high number of visitors to the Peak (it is estimated that 20 million people live within an hour’s drive of the Peak District National Park), we have been known to have five or even six tasks in a single day.
My cohort of six hopefuls were invited to various familiarisation events and to a selection day on Kinder. The emphasis (not unreasonably) was on the amount of time and commitment that Mountain Rescue required. A bit of fitness, a bit of navigation among the groughs, some ropework and crag confidence and an interview: what’s in your day sack? All 6 were invited to join the 18-month Aspirant programme: Me; another ex-Army, now the CEO of a local charity; a local builder; a professor of space physics; a secondary school teacher and a doctor. One basic requirement; we all live in the EMRT operational area.
There are a dozen modules in the Aspirant programme, some are assessed formally with pass/fail criteria, some require signing-off by the team subject matter experts, and some are attendance only (such as Governance – the Role of the Trustees (each MR team is a charity in its own right)). The big three modules are Casualty Care, Navigation and Technical Rope Rescue. A thorough knowledge of all the team equipment is also required.
First, in EMRT, every full team member is a Casualty Carer qualified to common MREW standards. It is a higher level of capability than the BFAT I have been involved in previously. In our SOPs, the first person to arrive at a casualty site leads on casualty care and I have been first on scene at a number of incidents (due to living close to the accident black spots around Castleton, rather than my speed up the hill). As a casualty
Stretcher Party (Author, Rear Left)
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