Training

You can’t learn to carry a stretcher across a peat bog in the dark on the night it matters. So we train every week, all year round, in the same conditions we’re called out in.

What we train in

• Navigation — on the open moor, in fog and at night, with map and compass first and technology second.
• Casualty care — our casualty carers hold the Mountain Rescue England and Wales remote rescue medical technician certificate and re-qualify every three years. Every member also trains in first aid and patient handling.
• Stretcher handling — carrying, lowering and raising a stretcher across bog, boulder fields, steep ground and gullies.
• Technical rope rescue — setting up safe systems on crags, quarries and steep banks to reach and recover a casualty.
• Search — search planning, lost-person behaviour, area and line searches, and working with search dogs and drones.
• Swiftwater and flood — for our specialist water team, with regular re-certification.
• Radios and technology — mapping, tracking and communications so that every team on the hill knows where every other team is.
• Driving — off-road and blue-light driving for our vehicle drivers.

Training with others

We regularly train alongside our neighbouring teams in the Peak District, with search dogs, with the police and ambulance service, and with the search and rescue helicopter crews. When a big incident happens, the people we work with already know each other.

The cost of training

Training is one of our biggest costs. Courses, re-certification, consumable medical supplies, replacement rope and the fuel to get to training sites all add up. When you donate, you’re paying for a volunteer to be good at this when it counts.