Articles

We literally made a ‘bomb’, when we Put on the Blitz

November 23rd, 2010

St Johns Community Centre in Penistone was transformed into a ‘Blitz’ era dance hall with sandbags for the stage, blast tape on the windows and music played by a live band to get people ‘In the Mood’. Many dance goers took the opportunity to dress in period clothing and outfits ranged from a US Army Colonel to a Spiv selling nylons.

Local schools & businesses came out in support of the team. Two schools, Cowlersley Junior and Infants in Huddersfield and St Johns Junior and Infants from Penistone, assisted with some artwork for the event as part of their studies into World War 2 and the Blitz. Andy Plummer, Woodhead team member and landlord of The Huntsman at Thurlstone ran and staffed the bar free of charge, he also arranged the free supply of bar equipment from White Rose Brewery in Sheffield and a barrel of beer from Clarks of Wakefield.

Phil Newing, team secretary commented  “This has been a great example of community spirit, just like in the Blitz. We raised our profile, peoples awareness of what we do and, more importantly, lots of smiles with the added bonus of £1,900 towards replacement kit”

Lady Mayoress Carol Bradbury was the guest of honour who opened the evening with a rousing speech praising the team for its community based efforts, and Stocksbridge & Penistone MP Rt Hon Angela Smith was also on hand to lend her support.

Later in the evening our friends at 95.7 Penistone FM popped in to record the proceedings and took  interviews; playing them on air shortly afterwards.

The originators of the idea were Woodhead team members Andy Simpson and Wayne Thackray.

Wayne said “We wanted an idea that was different and wasn’t as labour intensive for team members as some other fundraising events” he went on to add “we are really pleased that the event was so successful. We sold all the tickets prior to the event, so we may need a bigger venue next time”

Andy added “There are so many people who help with these things, from the seemingly endless amount of planning and preparation, through to the delivery, attending on the night and the cleaning away afterwards. It’s not just team members that get dragged in either, it’s wifes, husbands, partners, kids….. The amount of support and goodwill always amazes me. I’m extremely proud to be involved with such a great group of people that extends way beyond the immediate Woodhead Team Members. Our combined efforts have raised a very satisfactory amount. I’ve already got ideas for the next two events!

Swiftwater rescue – more fun than a grown-up should have!

June 7th, 2010

On a hot and sunny weekend in May of this year, three WMRT members – Wayne Thackray, Darren Edgar-Burrows (Debs) and myself journeyed up to the Yorkshire dales to throw ourselves in the river…repeatedly as it turned out!

This wasn’t just because it was lovely weather. We were taking part in a swiftwater rescue technician training course laid on by Swaledale MRT, and led by Rich Hey. Based at their base in Catterick, we spent four days immersed in the theory and practical of pulling people out of rivers.

To take a step back, this idea began to gain some momentum back in March, after a fact-finding email from the Peak District Mountain Rescue Organisation asking for details of our team’s water rescue capabilities. At the time WMRT didn’t have much to offer, but the idea that was triggered quickly grew into a plan to develop our own water capabilities.

Our first step was to find out who might be interested, and get them trained up. Accordingly, Wayne, Darren and I joined a course run by Rich Hey of Swaledale MRT. And what fun it was – 11 of us from 4 different mountain rescue teams were based at SMRT’s base for 4 days, and I don’t think any of us stopped grinning for the whole time.

The course itself was a IRIA-approved level 3 swiftwater rescue technician course, which over an intensive four days covered theory and practical sessions including hydrology, risk assessment and pre-planning for water incidents, hazard awareness, strategies for water rescue, incident command systems, defensive and offensive swimming, self-rescue, the hierarchy of water rescue, river crossing techniques, throwline rescue systems including V- and Y-lowers, live bait go-tow rescues, boat work and rope systems for live bait and boat-based rescues. We even squeezed in a night water search and rescue exercise.

The first full day was our introduction to survival skills in the water should we end up in the drink. Our instructor took us to a stretch of grade 2 water at Low Force, and told us to swim down it! Only grade 2 all the paddlers amongst us thought, but once you’re in it, without a boat, it can feel just a bit bigger. So, over the course of the afternoon, we got used to reading the current, protecting our heads and spines going down drops, ferry-gliding across currents and breaking into and out of eddies. Some were more tentative than others were to start with, but by the end of the session all were entering the water with a confident splash!

These skills were built on during the second practical session, where we learnt how to retrieve casualties with a variety of throwline techniques, including the go-tow live bait swim – in other words, diving in attached to a throwline and chasing the casualty down the river. On contact, you grab them, don’t let them dunk you, and get your mates to haul you in to the bank. Not something to be done lightly for real, but great fun to do in training!

Then came the night exercise, where we had the chance to integrate what we had learnt so far in a simulated incident. The brief was that someone was seen going over Richmond Falls in a boat about 40minutes previously. The bystanders had retrieved the boat downstream, but couldn’t find the boater. We split into search teams to cover the banks and the river itself, and soon found the unconscious casualty on some rocks in the falls.

That triggered the second phase of the incident – the rescue. A casualty care team gained access to the rocks and stabilised the casualty, who was then loaded into a stretcher and evacuated by floating the stretcher to the bank for a quick carry up to the team ambulance.

There were lots of learning points from this, but it was very encouraging to see how a group drawn from 4 different teams, who had only been together for 3 days, could mesh together to provide a coherent response to an incident. All this training works! 

The last day of the course saw us playing around with boats – I mean learning to handle rescue craft. The weather was again very kind to us – we hadn’t h ad less than full sunshine any day – so it was no hardship to practice self-rescue, recovering a casualty into the boat, capsize drills and the like. A highlight was the method of scooping up a crew member by ducking under the capsized hull and clinging on to the tube as the boat was righted.  We also got to practise some technical ropework with highlines, Norwegian and English reeves, and four-point tethers, all using the clean line principle so important for safe water rescue rope work.

Many thanks to our hosts, Swaledale MRT, and to our instructor Rich Hey, for providing such good tuition, and making the whole experience such fun. As one of the group said, swiftwater rescue really is more fun than a grown-up should have!

First Aid can be boring, right?

May 28th, 2010

How a simple fundraising idea became the talk of the town….

“First Aid. Can be boring, right? Usually death by powerpoint and spending hours practicing sticking someones sprained wrist into a sling. Mountain First Aid. Not always what it’s cracked up to be, my last one we spent 4 hours (no kidding) just going through the DRABC bit. The outdoors section? Well we were under a canopy…

Mountain First Aid with Woodhead Mountain Rescue Team and Blackhill Training: there are no words to describe how worthwhile, educational and fun my past weekend with them has been. The highlight of course: sorting out a multi-casualty incident out on the actual moors (instead of a patch of handy grass) in the horizontal rain (yes we all got very, very wet) with an evacuation by the actual Mountain Rescue team. OK no helicopters, but you aren’t going to get a better true-to-life experience than this one. So look out for it when Cara-lyn advertises the next one.”

I read aloud from the computer screen, more followed……

“I’m doing my ML so have to do a first aid course before assessment. Oh joy!

I’ve done loads of first aid courses at work. They usually went like this: “Here’s how you bandage a finger, now let’s do CPR. This is how to put an arm in a sling using a method we’ve adapted from an advanced origami manual. Let’s do some more CPR. This how to put someone into the recovery position (if they have conveniently fainted on there back on a flat surface away from obstruction) oh, and we haven’t done CPR for a good 10 mins.” All delivered in a deadpan monotone voice. 5 mins later I’d walk out the door thinking, I hope I never have to do that as I’ve forgotten most of it all ready.

Oh, not so good….

“The Woodhead Course is NOT like this.”

Phew!.I was getting worried there….I read on..

It was over a weekend and I had to pay £90 myself, and I live in Yorkshire! I thought it seemed like a lot, but then the money goes to Woodhead MRT so I thought I’d give it a go.

Having completed the course (and passed!) I’d recommend it to any one. It was fascinating, the course is delivered in a highly entertaining way by trainers that really know what they are talking about and are up to date in the latest protocols. You will cover things that you won’t see in most first aid courses, like suspension injuries, dealing with casualties on steep slopes, rock fall and frost bite. The night time exercise on the moors is an experience I will never forget. Big thanks to all the volunteers from the MRT and Services that made that possible.

The course is tough, its hands on but you’ll be amazed by how much you learn and can retain over the weekend. You certainly don’t feel like you’ve just been handed a certificate at the end of it, you have to earn the award. But if you spend time in the outdoors, you really should consider doing this course. If you are doing your ML or SPA it is invaluable.”

High praise indeed from one of the many delegates that have now attended the Mountain First Aid Course…..

This feedback was posted after the last successful course on UKClimbing one of the ‘busiest’ climbing based forums on the web. Just how we got to this point is quite a long story, one that has seen many ups and downs, quite a few changes both in theory and practice and not surprisingly, large amounts of alcohol!

How to raise funds?…….

The Woodhead MRT / Blackhill Training Mountain & Outdoor First Aid Course to give it the right grand and proper title has come a long, long way since the first one back in September 2005. Back then I was looking at different ways of raising money for the team and was racking my brains for an answer when I saw on the web that an outdoors web based forum (of which I was a member) was hosting / organising a list of events to raise money and one of those was First Aid Training.  EUREKA!

 

The First of Many

So I had the bones of the idea now to flesh it out. I got busy researching approvals, monitoring, content. Then there was insurances, getting the idea past the committee and gaining their approval, but before you knew it the first course had been run and with much success. However there was room for improvement.

There was a write up on t’ web……

http://www.outdoorsmagic.com/outdoors-news/1st-aid-the-outdoorsmagic-way/3544.html

and  even a podcast!……….

http://toc.dl.hipcast.com/deluge/9789a213-8b4f-cc55-6d6d-3a587c690a4e.mp3

Much more suprising was the delegates from the previous course expressed an interest in a follow up ‘refresher’ course about 6 months afterwards.

Humble Beginnings…..

It was during these courses I got talking to Cara. I already knew Cara through the web, and also some links to a relative or two. At the time Cara worked in advertising and the media and had a raft of ideas which might help  to take the course forward. The chats extended to phone calls and email exchanges and pretty soon I’s were dotted and T’s were crossed and the first fundraising course went ‘public’. Initially we were concerned because we were not getting the numbers we needed – Little did we know that later we would have such rave reviews and such success, with delegates travelling from as far away as Gibraltar & Peru. In fact demand has outstripped supply!

A success?……

A conservative estimate would be that we have trained circa 150 people and raised £17,000 – training the 150 people is worth it in itself, in fact one of our ‘students’ went on to correctly treat and look after a casualty with a collapsed lung. In my book thats a success.

On top of that there’s the publicity, you can’t beat word of mouth and after every course the feedback was great and usually on the W.W.W within hours.

The Future?….

The last course ran in October 2009, unfortunately we haven’t been able to get the gang together at the same time to run another. Cara has given up the Media hype and joined West Midlands Ambulance Service and I’m still as busy as ever teaching First Aid in the Workplace as well as attending call outs and training, oh and getting ready for upgrade with Dodge.

 

Will there be another course?   Yes, probably.

When?……. Now that’s a different story……..

for further details on the course email via the contact us tab

Life as a search dog handler

May 14th, 2010

So what do Search Dog handlers do?

As a Search & Rescue dog handler, you work with a specially trained dog and have responsibility for its training, care and control. You and your dog will work as a team, finding lost or missing persons or even personal property.

What qualifications and experience will I need?

Entry requirements for each of the NSARDA groups vary slightly from association to association, but in general to become a trainee handler you must have been a full  member of a recognised Mountain Rescue / Search & Rescue Team for 12 months, and be proposed and supported by them. In addition to this aspirant handlers must have spent time bodying – thats hiding from Search Dogs.  (SARDA England has a 6  month Bodying Requirement from all aspirant  handlers)

See the National Search and Rescue Dog Association (NSARDA) website to find out more.

What further training and development can I do?

Once you become an operational  Search & Rescue dog handler your continuation training will vary depending on the training organisation. (See the NSARDA website for information on training for the Search and Rescue services.) In all organisations you would receive ongoing training to make sure that you keep up the necessary standards.

What skills and knowledge will I need?

as well as the pre-requisite mountain/fell experience…

  • time – lots of it !
  • an understanding family
  • experience of caring for dogs
  • patience – lots !
  • self-confidence
  • the ability to work with minimum supervision
  • good observational skills
  • above all a sense of humor

What are the hours and working conditions?

You’re on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year – of course you dont have to attend call outs all the time, but your dog will require your attention until the end of its life.
Working conditions vary from torrential rain and blizzards, to high winds and freezing temperatures,  its mostly weekends, evenings, nights or really early mornings – your pager never goes off when the weather is nice and it does so at the most inopportune moments.

The favourite times are when you have just sat down to eat, got into bed, the bath or shower – or the pub!

What salary and other benefits can I expect?

None! – In fact it costs you money ! The first expense is the dog -  yes, you will have to buy your own dog! although many handlers have had success with rehomed or rescued dogs.

So why do it then ?

The satisfaction and reward comes from knowing that you are helping others as well as being part of something really special – that unique bond, the special partnership that exists between a working dog and its handler.