Darwin Award Nominations

[Agriv8]

Jonty I hope I never need the services of you and your colleagues but as age creeps up on me a foot caught In an unseen rabbit hole or a boot not quite as firm on a slippery rock I know that sometimes accidents happen. I am risk overse but like pushing myself as a Yorkshire man I need hills and I need to climb them rain sun snow and fog !

simple things can make a huge difference  like a survival bag I wander if you have a link to remind us what steps and planning we can take to help you help us if the accident does happen!

thanks

Agriv8

[Jonty]

11 hours ago, Agriv8 said:

Jonty I hope I never need the services of you and your colleagues but as age creeps up on me a foot caught In an unseen rabbit hole or a boot not quite as firm on a slippery rock I know that sometimes accidents happen. I am risk overse but like pushing myself as a Yorkshire man I need hills and I need to climb them rain sun snow and fog !

simple things can make a huge difference  like a survival bag I wander if you have a link to remind us what steps and planning we can take to help you help us if the accident does happen!

thanks

Agriv8

In the nicest possible way - I hope I don't bump into you in a professional capacity too 😀

You raise a good question, there is a really good site called Adventure Smart https://www.adventuresmart.uk/ which is endorsed by most MR teams.  It's all based on three questions:

Do I have the right skills? Do I know what the weather will be like? Do I have the right kit? - it's pretty self explanatory and makes a lot of sense.

On top of that, for me, I just plan for if I do come unstuck, with the best will in the world, in the hills in the UK you are looking at anywhere between 60-360 minutes before help can arrive, and even longer before you could be extracted from the hill.  So I want to make that potentially grim time, as least grim as possible for me and anyone else in my party.  For me, that's a decent first aid kit (including analgesia and aspirin), a group shelter/bothy (can keep your party warm as well as yourself rather than a 1 person bag) and a spare jacket & hat.  Obviously people will have there own opinions and will also carry their regular day to day hill kit, but those three items are a permanent fixture in my bag.  

Regarding calling for help in the hills, even if it's a medical event, call 999 ask for police then ask for mountain rescue.  If it's serious enough to warrant an air ambulance, they monitor the call out system that the police work to and will self deploy if necessary.  If it requires a regular ambulance, the MR team controller will coordinate that - usually by getting the ambulance to a RV where the paramedics can be transported off road in an appropriate vehicle.  If you do call 999 and ask for ambulance then MR, its not really a problem, they use the same callout system, it's just that there can be some confusion in coordinating the ambulance to the most logical/accessible spot.  

I hope this helps 👍