Today the team hosted a visit of students and staff from Wellfield Business & Enterprise College, Leyland.
Team member Diane Blakeley is an ICT teacher at Wellfield B.E.C., and Diane used the visit today to provide an insight into the workings of the team to the students present today.
Diane’s personal account of the visit today is reported below;
“As well as being a volunteer member of Bolton Mountain Rescue Team I am an ICT teacher and member of the Leadership Team at Wellfield Business & Enterprise College in Leyland. The College is very supportive of my work with Bolton Mountain Rescue Team, allowing me to attend some emergency rescues, whilst my students are always interested to hear about my latest ‘rescue’.
Today I had the great pleasure of welcoming the Wellfield B&E College Summer School to our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ. Assistant Head Teacher Abigale Bowe, Head of Student Support and Year 7 Bev Yates and Key Stage 3 Pastoral Manager Mark Adams brought along twenty eight students who will be starting at Wellfield as Year 7 students in September 2012. They were supported by 5 Year 9 students and 1 Year 8 student who were acting as mentors.
Helping me out for the day were Team President Bob Hutchinson, Team Members Mark Scott, Naomi Horan (Our Equipment Officer : Medical) and Kris Kilshaw. We greeted the students and staff who were warmly welcomed into our Base / HQ, firstly to hear a brief talk on the work of the team, and then to watch a video I recently made showing some of the work the team does.
During the summer school the students have been split into four groups Lions, Pumas, Tigers and Leopards, so the students stayed in these groups to learn more about the team and try some practical activities. The Tigers started with Naomi learning more about some of the specialist medical equipment we use including the AED defibrillator, neck collars, pulse oximeter and blood pressure monitor. The Lions went first to Kris where they learnt how to load a casualty onto a stretcher, lift and then carry the stretcher. The Leopards started with Bob learning all about the Land Rovers, the equipment they carry before some students had a go on the radio by checking radio signals with me who acted as ‘radio control.’ The Pumas went with Mark learning about our vacuum splits for legs and arms before using the full length vacuum mattress.
Each group then swapped round to try all the activities, with the students having their lunch sat on the grass fronting our courtyard in the glorious sunshine, in between sessions.
Before the students left there was time for two of the mentors to become “injured and lost” in the grounds. Actually they did take some finding! The students split into two groups. Mentor Rosa Bowe was rescued using the vacuum mattress, whilst mentor Ben Alami had a rather longer stretcher carry using the SAR Alpine Lite MR Stretcher. As well as completing the stretcher carries they also used the radio and carried all the equipment needed for the ‘rescue’.
The visit ended with thanks from the staff and students, who then made a wonderfully kind donation of £100.00 towards the work of the team. On a personnel note I would like to thank my rescue team colleagues for all their help and enthusiasm during this visit with my students.”
Please also see website ‘news’ reports dated Tuesday 26th July 2011, Monday 14th November 2011, and Sunday 25th March 2012.