Man is rescued five days after going missing
Volunteer search and rescue team in action
A VOLUNTEER search and rescue team, supported by specialist police officers and an aerial drone, helped to save the life of a vulnerable missing man who spent five days missing outdoors.
The 46-year-old man was reported missing from the Sutton Bonington area on the Sunday, June 28, and was last seen heading into an area of expansive fields near the River Soar.
After several police searches of the area proved unsuccessful, officers requested specialist help from members of the Nottinghamshire Search and Rescue Team (NSART) – a charity working in partnership with the police.
Seventeen volunteer responders, supported by officers from Nottinghamshire Police’s underwater search, tactical support and drones team, spent much of Thursday scouring the area in heavy rain.
After around six hours of searching more than a square mile of land the team found the man shortly after 4pm in a dense crop of trees – badly dehydrated but alive.
PC Richard Mosley, a specially trained Police Search Advisor, said: “We had spent several days looking for this man and I must say that I started to fear the worst. He was in poor health already and he simply wasn’t dressed for the kind of weather we had been experiencing. He had no food or water with him and was wearing only a t-shirt, hooded jumper and a pair of jeans.
“I’ve been involved in searches before where we have recovered dead bodies and I had really started to think this was going to be the same. We even had members of our underwater search team scouring the banks of the river and searching likely snagging points for a body.”
The man was found by volunteer NSART members in a copse of trees so dense that even the camera attached to the police drone could not see through it. He was treated at the scene and later transferred to hospital for further checks.
The Nottinghamshire Search and Rescue Team, whose control unit is based at Sherwood Lodge, is a registered charity dependent on public donations. It is made up of nearly 50 volunteers with a wide range of experience and expertise – including firefighters, paramedics and doctors. With expertise in lowland search operations the team is on duty 365 days a year to assist the police.
Jo Scott, chairman of the Nottinghamshire Search and Rescue Team, was one of the volunteer responders on the ground. She added: “What we saw on Thursday was a perfect example of team working with the police.
“If we’d not found him when we did the outcome may not have been so positive. Everyone involved in the team is a volunteer with jobs elsewhere. It can be very demanding but results like this make it all worthwhile. It’s fair to say that we all went home on a massive high.”
PC Mosley added: “I think what this incident demonstrates above all is that remarkable team effort that goes in to finding so many high-risk missing people. It’s not just the officers or search teams on the ground; it’s also those in missing from home team who are constantly liaising with families and processing other intelligence such as CCTV images or making calls to witnesses. It really is a huge team effort and I really can’t say enough good things about our colleagues from NSART.”
PC Mosley also highlighted the
“game-changing” nature of aerial drones in searches for missing people: “On this occasion the drone wasn’t actually able to identify where this man was, but it was able to search and clear large open areas in a timely manner. In a methodical search like this that is invaluable. The fields around were full of waist high crops.
“Twenty people searching through those on foot would have many hours that we simply didn’t have; it would also have caused thousands of pounds worth of damage. So the police drone really is a game changer when it comes to finding missing people.”
The Nottinghamshire Search and Rescue Team is a registered charity that relies on public donations to carry out its life saving work.
As well as supporting the police is also has a secondary objective to help the local community in times of crisis – such as flooding. The team has also been busy during the Covid-19 epidemic – delivering PPE to front-line services and getting medication to patients.
Last year it was the nominated charity for the Chief’s Charity Challenge – a year of fund-raising activities led by Chief Constable Craig Guildford that raised more than £4,500 to support its work.