My ‘rescue’ by lakeland’s team of mountain heroes
AS Easter approaches, many of us will head off to beauty spots. But when misfortune strikes on a peak, brave rescuers scramble to save lives. Daily Express reporter JAN DISLEY joined Patterdale Mountain Rescue Team in the Lake District to learn more about these vital volunteers
“HELLO, hello … are you coming for us? It’s my wife, she’s fallen, she’s hurt herself badly.”
My panic-stricken husband has dialled 999 and is pleading for help.
I’m prostrate at the far side of Ullswater in the Lake District. After tumbling 10 yards while taking a photo, I’m now lying on a steep grassy bank in agony with a broken leg.
At least that’s the scenario Patterdale Mountain Rescue Team (MRT) have created for a training exercise with me as the casualty.
It is typical of the kind of emergency they face with an average of 80 to 100 call-outs every year.
Around 60 per cent of those have a medical element like mine. The rest involve walkers who are lost, crag-fast (stuck and scared) or overdue – they were expected at a B&B but have not returned yet.
The 38-strong Patterdale team is one of 12 that make up the Lake District Search and Mountain Rescue Association (LDSMRA).
That is 450 highly trained but unpaid volunteers. In 2021 the LDSMRA went to 681 callouts, of which 23 were fatal and 150 were either lost or missing – in other words, avoidable. So far in 2022 there have been 123 call-outs in total.
If there is a common factor among the crew it is a love of the fells and a desire to “give something back”.
Today, Patterdale probationer Josh MacAlister, 35, is practising his medical skills on the hills for the first time with team leader Matt Nielson, 51, and medical officer Dr Andy McAlea guiding him along the way.
I’m what Dr McAlea colloquially calls “big sick” – which is not good when you are well off the beaten path and need a boat to get to you.
“Our job is to keep the patient alive and get them as soon as possible to a trauma unit,” he explains.
Patterdale’s rigid inflatable is 14 years old and due for replacement – the team are trying to raise £70,000 for that – but it is still up to the job.
Josh’s must complete an advanced casualty care course. This is no basic first aid but full trauma training. He and the team need to administer painkilling drugs, splint my fractured femur and get me evacuated on a stretcher. It can be the difference between life and death and it is a far cry from Josh’s day job chairing a review of children’s social care.
Today it is glorious – but often the wind will be howling, there will be snow and it will be bitterly cold. If a casualty has a head injury, they can become aggressive. It may be a case of wrestling them onto the stretcher.
Patterdale MRT know more than most about the risks involved.
In February last year one of their own, Chris Lewis, slipped and fell 150 yards during a rescue he should never have had to go on because the lockdown had barred hill campers.
Chris is paralysed and still in hospital more than a year later. Well-wishers raised more than £1million to support him within days.
The team have “shouts” they will never forget. For builder Glen Hodges, 63, and equipment manager Glenn Bridge, 62, it is the Paul Robinson rescue in August 2016 – for which they were Pride of Britain finalists.The dog
‘More people have been using the national park for the first time and that means more inexperience’
walker, from Stoke-on-Trent, needed life-saving surgery on the mountain after falling 300 yards down. Mike Blakey said: “He was definitely dying when we got to him.”
For mum-of-three and A&E nurse SuzieWilson, 47, it was the rescue of a young boy who fell down a waterfall. For retired Northants police officer
Mark Tomlinson, 62, it is the reason he joined. In 1995, aged 35, he was “avalanched” down Nethermost Gully on Helvellyn on a climbing trip. “My left leg was smashed and my foot was twisted 180 degrees,” he says.
Most callouts are unavoidable but there are the idiots. The chap who got lost in the fells with a map scrawled on the back of a beer mat. The ice climbers who were sharing crampons. The lad stuck on a slope in flip flops.
Dr McAlea said: “Because of foreign travel restrictions more people have been using national park for the first time and that means more inexperience. The weather in the village might be lovely but it can be very different on the tops.”
It is more than 50 years since Patterdale MRT was formed. Back in 1964 they used gates as stretchers.The alert to volunteers came with two rounds fired from a shotgun.
Now the Patterdale team endorses the Adventure Smart.uk website which spells out vital advice for walking in the Lakes.They don’t want to put walkers off but to be safe. ●●To donate go to ldsamra.org.uk