So how do we get to you ?

Firstly after the 999 call is made and diverted to the correct Police Control Room – the duty officer will decide on the next course of action. In a life threatening emergency they will immediately call one of our Duty Controllers who will in turn call the appropriate team, who then in turn dispatch the correct resources.

A missing person is a different story………

Police investigations will need to be made. The Police have operational responsibility (or primacy) for missing people in the UK and the missing persons can be divided into several categories dependent on factors such as age and vulnerability.  In many cases the missing persons file will be passed onto a PoLSA (Police Search Advisor). These Police officers are highly trained and motivated individuals who specialise in the business of search.

The PoLSA then passes the ‘job’ onto another set of highly trained and motivated individuals………us!  This is co-ordinated in the PDMRO teams by a Search / Incident controller who will mobilise the relevant teams and resources. Team Members are called via a personal issue radio pager on the Vodapage Network, however increasingly teams are moving towards SMS messaging to replace or augment the pager system.

At Woodhead we can call on Specialist Search Dogs, Our new Water Search & Rescue Section  and traditional Searcher groups.

Once we get to the missing person / casualty then the business of treating any medical problems takes over, whilst any evacuation and rescue plans are formulated – At Woodhead we have 2 Doctors, A Paramedic, an EMT and 2 Advanced Casualty Carers so the level of medical care is as good as it gets in the remote environment.

Then comes the evacuation.  Luckily the Peak District Teams have access to several Air Ambulances, as well as the RAF SAR Sea Kings, but inevitably we default to the ubiquitous Bell Stretcher.  A stalwart amongst rescue teams it has seen many years service and has been constantly updated. Invented by…. yes, you guessed it Peter Bell it has been the main form of transport for many an injured walker and climber and in quite a few urban jobs too. It comes in 2 halves, each weighing in at 15kgs for the steel version.

Now the evacuation is over you would be mistaken for thinking that this is it…no dear reader, now we have to reorganise kit ready for the next call out. We may have to send someone to get kit back from the hospital and on an overnight job we may just get home in time to shower and change and head off out to work!