Meet Owen Phillips - the man who might just save your life

of his father, a retired senior firefighter who worked in Slaithwaite, Holmfirth, Huddersfield, Dewsbury and Cleckheaton, and sister, a nurse.

What’s more he says the team brought him into proximity with the girl who became his wife – and offered support when he lost his mum to cancer.

“My father, Pete, joined Holme Valley MRT in November 1980, nearly four years before I was born,” says Owen.

“I would hang around our old HQ building in Meltham as a child ‘helping’ with things. I remember piles of change been counted out on our kitchen table following street collections. I remember frequent visitors; family friends who were – and many still are – members of the team.”

He also recalls the family pet being trained as a mountain rescue dog, with he and older sister Jen, now a nurse at HRI, assisting by hiding in the woods under a camouflage net or by being ‘buried’ in a snowhole up on the moors in the winter, “only to be found by an excited and boisterous dog, digging through the snow.”

Clearly it’s in his blood, and he loves it.

Owen, who was born in Meltham and now lives in Shepley, became a full member of the Marsden-based team and joined the call-out list following his 18th birthday in June 2002.

Over the following 15 years he became more involved in the running of the team, accepted a position on the team council and took on increasingly senior assistant leader roles.

As a self-employed designer, the time he was able to commit became very flexible, enabling him me to be almost always available for call-outs.

And they have been many and varied. “We have endless streams of motorbike and paraglider crashes ... it keeps us busy. But we get some unusual jobs, too. Three or four years ago we were called out to assist the ambulance service as their vehicles couldn’t get through the snow. “It was a normal family home where a little girl had taken a bite out of a peanut butter sandwich. She didn’t know she had an allergy so it was quite an alarming situation. “We used a 4x4 with chains on the wheels to get to the house, get her out and to an ambulance. That was just a family at home that got into difficulties but it was a rewarding experience personally.” He remembers another situation

We have endless streams of motorbike and paraglider crashes ... it keeps us busy.