Early this morning our Equipment Officer (Water) John Fletcher in our BM4 Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulance with our 3.5 metre long semi rigid inflatable SAR Boat, set off for the second full day of our water training on the River Dee at Llangollen, North Wales. (See website ‘News’ report on the first session, dated Saturday 27th July 2013)

At Llangollen he was due to meet team members Steve Nelson and Elaine Gilliland, but en route and near to the exercise location, at circa 08.45hrs, Steve Nelson received a call out for his specialist Mountain Rescue Trailing Search Dog, to assist NEWSAR with a search in the Wrexham area.

All three journeyed to the search RVP, where in discussion with search managers, Steve (With Elaine) decided to journey back to his home address to collect Boris, his Trailing Dog (Steve alongside his membership of Bolton MRT is also a SARDA (Wales) Dog Handler)

John meantime, assisted NEWSAR in the search, by putting our BM4 vehicle at their disposal.

The search involved a missing male in his 70’s from a Care Home in the Cymau area of Wrexham, with NEWSAR, an Air Scenting Search Dog from SARDA (Wales) and North Wales Police.

Just as Steve and Elaine, now with Trailing Search Dog Boris, arrived at the search control, at circa 14.15hrs the missing man was found by a member of the public, and the search was called off.

The following communication has been received by our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE from Gerald Davison, Deputy Team Leader, North East Wales Search and Rescue (NEWSAR);

“Hi Garry,

Just wanted to say a big thank you to Elaine Gilliland, Steve Nelson and John Fletcher and not forgetting Boris. They gave up their SRT water training to assist NEWSAR with the search for a Missing From Home. The search concluded when a member of the public found the MFH, A good result.

Proving again (if proof was ever needed) that MR members from any team will all work together well for the good of the Casualty.

Please pass on my thanks officially.

Regards,
Gerald Davison,
Deputy Team Leader,
North East Wales Search and Rescue (NEWSAR)”

The following communication has been received by our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE from Dani Burgess, Fundraising Officer for NEWSAR;

“Hi Garry, Sorry NEWSAR interrupted your water training today, was good to have the support from your team and was a good result in the end thanks to John Fletcher and BM4 for helping out and to Steve & Elaine for doing a round trip back to Bolton for Boris.

Please find attached a little photo for you showing your poor abandoned Bolton Boat at our RV.

We will try not to disrupt your training schedule next time you guys venture into North Wales.

Regards,
Dani Burgess,
Fundraising Officer North East Wales Search and Rescue (NEWSAR) “