Wednesday 7th May 2014. .
Assembling at the Lever Park, Rivington, exercise venue this evening, in the vicinity of Rivington Hall Barn, the twenty Team Call Out list members attending tonight’s weekly evening exercise were presented by our Training Officer Neil Warburton, with an RTC scenario, involving a crashed Land Rover Freelander somewhere on the stone track system of Lever Park.
As it was an exercise nothing was simple, with the information that the emergency caller could no longer be contacted, so a rapid search was required as dusk approached.
With Team member Kris Kilshaw sorting out all present in to two search parties, members commenced a search of the tracks and byeways around Rivington Hall Barn.
A false lead turned out to be a 4×4 Group at lower House Car Park area, with the exercise scenario being located relatively quickly soon afterwards by a search party under experienced and long serving team member Ged Clarke’s direction.
A young woman was trapped in a Land Rover Freelander which had collided with a tree, also trapped in the vehicle were her 10 year old daughter and 14 year old son.
Ged’s party immediately called upon the other despatched party for assistance, and commenced (exercise) casualty assessment and treatment.
Much use was made tonight for the first time, of our ‘Training Trauma Sac,’ which has been put together by Team member Alistair Greenough, to replicate almost exactly our operational Trauma Sac’s.
Overseeing the exercise casualty site was our two Team Doctors, Richard Moss and Mark Jeffrey, who ensured the twenty team members present did everything correctly and offered their gentle guidance based upon their Accident and Emergency experiences.
Our Long Board, Scoop Stretcher and Vacuum Splints and KED Splint were all put to use, including Collars and Head Blocks, on all three exercise casualties who played out their role very convincingly.
With the onset of darkness and rain, the exercise was successfully completed.
We would like to record our thanks to the family of our Training Officer Neil Warburton, for acting the roles of our three exercise casualties this evening; Helen, Neil’s wife, and their children, Tom aged 14 very soon, (Happy Birthday in advance) and Mia aged ten.
During all of this a further four Team members were at our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ discussing and detailing the available options for our soon to be made Team issue Waterproof Mountain Jacket purchase to replace our existing ten year old plus Keela Munro Jackets.
