Mountain rescuers

Brave, hardy and dedicated, they give up their time to volunteer with Scottish Mountain Rescue. Gayle Ritchie joins an avalanche rescue training weekend

The brave men and women who volunteer to make saving us their business

PTSD can be an issue, so as a team, we need to look out for each other

An avalanche has been triggered in the Southern Cairngorms and a walker is missing in Glenshee.

It’s down to members of Braemar Mountain Rescue Team (BMRT) to locate him.

The avalanche area is south of the ski centre, over a steep snow-covered bluff, and it’s a tough uphill slog before the team can begin searching.

They find him buried under a foot of snow, traumatised but seemingly uninjured. After a medic checks him over, he’s placed on a vacuum mattress, loaded onto a stretcher and taken down the mountain.

A situation like this is one that Scottish Mountain Rescue (SMR) teams up and down the country deal with on a regular basis.

But today’s “casualty” is fake (a volunteer is acting out the role) and the “avalanche” has been created as part of the training exercise by members of the team, including SAIS (Scottish Avalanche Information Service).

With the SAIS recording 177 avalanches in Scotland so far this season – 85 of them in February alone – it’s vital that mountain rescue teams undertake extensive training so they can respond as effectively as possible.

I’ve been invited along to witness some of the scenarios encountered by these unsung heroes, volunteers who give up their time to carry out rescue missions. Today there are 40, including teachers, forestry workers, oil engineers, police officers, countryside rangers, gamekeepers, doctors, IT consultants and retail managers.

On the Cairngorms plateau, wind-chill can drop to a teeth-chattering -35C so ex-policeman John Drysdale kits me out in a snuggly down jacket, which is apparently “fit for Everest”.

As we trudge up the hill, John gives me some tips on what to do if I’m ever “avalanched”.

“You’ll be disorientated and won’t have a clue whether you’re upside down or not, so the best thing to do is spit,” he explains.

“If your saliva travels downwards, you’re upright. Then you’ll need to fight your way to the top. The fear factor comes quickly and the weight of snow on top of you can feel like concrete. But if venturing into avalanche-prone areas, it’s essential to carry an avalanche transceiver which emits signals.”

There’s an amazing camaraderie between team members – they smile, joke and poke fun at each other – but dealing with death is a major part of the job.

Most have at some point been hit hard by traumatic expeditions but they can’t afford to let their emotions take over. It’s only later, when they’re in the pub or back at base that they open up, although talk is often tinged with black humour.

In his 30-plus years of volunteering with BMTR, John, 60, has made more than a few heartbreaking discoveries.

He’s still haunted by a rescue mission in 1989 involving a German tourist and his two children.

Their plan was to walk from Braemar to Aviemore via Ben Macdui but when they failed to return that evening, the alarm was raised.

“Despite it being August, they were caught in a bad storm. The father was found first, having become hypothermic,” recalls John.

“He’d become weak carrying the kids and left them to get help on his own. The team found the children a short distance away.

“The boy was alive, but the girl was dead. We found that difficult to deal with, as many of us were fathers.”

Another tragic call-out was to Lochnagar where two climbers had fallen. One had died on impact and the other had broken his femur and bled out.

“PTSD can be an issue when dealing with traumatic injuries, so as a team, we need to look out for each other. But we’re offered counselling after any