What do we do?
Rossendale and Pendle MRT deal with an average of 70 incidents each year, most of which require some sort of medical intervention. So it is absolutely key to the service we provide, not just that we have the specialist equipment to deal with these situations, but that team members are trained in the necessary skills to use it.
Our incident reports for the past ten years reflect a wide range of emergency situations, demanding very different treatments. We’ve dealt with heart attacks and angina, diabetic hypos and anaphylactic shock, heat exhaustion and hypothermia, broken limbs and head injuries. We’ve rushed pregnant women to hospital, their waters recently broken and – sadly at the other end of the spectrum – recovered the bodies of suicide victims and fallen climbers and fell runners.
And, as more and more people take to the hills and moorlands, there’s a host of other eventualities we need to be aware of. Just in case.
Over time, protocols and procedures have changed, equipment become increasingly sophisticated which means a good deal of training involves team members familiarising themselves with the first aid kit, larger items of medical equipment such as casbags, stretchers, vacuum mattress and splints, as well as stretcher handling, ropework, driving the vehicles and radio protocols.
Casualty care and first aid
Mountain rescue personnel often have to work in adverse conditions – in the teeth of a wind or the black of night, in a distinctly inhospitable environment – and this can become a significant factor in patient management. Casualties may be found many miles from a roadhead and helicopter evacuation may not be possible due to poor weather. Consequently team members may have to cope with potentially life threatening injuries, for extended periods of time.
The team has a ‘team doctor’ – a practising GP – and there are several paramedics and ambulance technicians on the call out list. However, they may not always be present at a call out, so team members must be fully capable of taking decisions and initiating actions in the best interests of the casualty and the medical training is designed to give them that ability and confidence.
All team members are required to have an understanding of the basic skills of ABC – Airway, Breathing, Circulation – and CPR. In other words, the ability to determine whether a casualty has a viable airway, how they are breathing and whether there is a detectable pulse and then to perform CPR, should this be required, until the casualty can be transferred to the care of the statutory emergency services.
Beyond the basics, the majority of team members are also trained to the exacting high standards of the Mountain Rescue (England & Wales) Casualty Care Course. This strict curriculum covers all the possible scenarios a team member is likely to meet, and is examined and certificated – renewable every three years.
Besides the diagnosis and treatment of injuries and medical conditions, the course covers the triage of multiple casualties, the use of specialised medical equipment and how to choose the most appropriate evacuation techniques for the injuries involved.
Equipment
All the medical equipment used is useful, portable and simple to use in most environments. Bearing in mind that even a four wheel drive rescue team vehicle – or a hovering helicopter – may not be able to directly access a casualty, a major consideration is that team members are required to carry all the necessary equipment to the casualty site on their backs!
So, for example, the classic Bell stretcher – standard equipment for all teams – is specifically designed for mountain use, splitting into two halves, each one portable by a single team member. The pieces are then assembled at the point of need.
Other items of equipment such as the vacmat and casbag have their own carrying bags, as do the oxygen and Entonox cylinders, and smaller items are grouped together – according to potential need – in medical rucksacks. We also carry smaller kits, assigned to those most likely to be first on scene, to enable initial first aid treatment before further team members and equipment arrive