Tonight, was our second joint training exercise with Cheshire Lowland Search
& Rescue Team. This evening’s exercise had 5 very different casualty scenarios ranging from an epileptic fit, a heart attack – to a rather nasty quad
bike accident. The rendezvous point was Lower House Car Park in Rivington and
the exercise casualty sites were dotted around the local area.

It was made even worse by the fact of tonight’s organiser, Alistair Greenough (an Accident & Emergency Nurse in his normal job), coming up with these fiendishly testing exercises for Cheshire LSART & ourselves.

We were joined by three members from ATACC (Anaesthetic Trauma And Critical Care Team), a group whom we had worked alongside on
the M2002 Commonwealth Games – they had brought a casualty simulator simply
called Simm Man. Simm Man had unfortunately lost the lower part of his leg
after a nasty Quad Bike accident, his breathing and heart stopped every now
and then, it was almost as if he was alive or dead whenever a Team member
came near him. The added realism of the casulaty simulator was very clear to
be seen on members’ faces, some previously calm people suddenly became a
nervous wreck whilst dealing with Simm Man.

Bolton MRT member Andy Ryding & Hayley Mather performs a primary assesment on the “casualty’s” airway.

Bolton MRT member Andy Ryding realises his “casualty” has suddenly stopped breathing and has no pulse.

The other benefit of tonight’s exercise was to give Cheshire LSART a chance
of seeing our Mountain Rescue Medical Casualty Care equipment & evacuation equipment in use. Actual hands-on
approach is much better than being shown and tonight’s exercises were
designed for this reason as well.

Bolton MRT & Cheshire LSART members carrying another “casualty”.

De-brief time after completion of an exercise..

It also gave us the chance to roadtest our new Control Trailer. The new radio
installation was checked to be working and then the wipeboards were checked to be fully functioning, with the endless supply of graphical depictions of who was where and doing what on the hill, something which Garry, our Team Leader, has down to a fine art. ( It’s rumoured his diagram of resources from this year’s Winter Hill Fell Race, will soon be shown at the Tate Gallery in London !!)