The origins of SARDA owe a great deal to one man, Hamish MacInnes, a past leader of Glencoe Mountain Rescue Team. Back in the early 1960s, Hamish MacInnes was invited by the International Red Cross to attend a training course for avalanche dogs at Trubsee near Engleberg in the Swiss Alps. There he saw the work of the Swiss Alpine Club in using a dog’s natural scenting ability to locate humans buried under avalanche debris. Hamish MacInnes saw the potential for using dogs to search for lost walkers and climbers in the UK. In December 1964, he used a Glencoe training course for mountain rescue members from throughout the UK as a sounding board for the ideas. Encouraged by the response from members and the potential shown by the Swiss dogs, a meeting was held in May 1965 and
Return to search dog roots David and Brock are members of Lake District Mountain Rescue Search Dogs and you can find out more about this regional organisation at www.lakes-searchdogs.org
Everything’s under Control
SARDA (the Search and Rescue Dog Association) was formed. There’s an obvious connection to the Team’s current dog handlers but also an historic link from earlier this year. In April, Lurcher, Brock and handler, David Benson, stopped off at Engleberg to visit Trubsee for themselves. “I’d always wanted to visit the location as it holds such an important place in the origins of UK mountain search and rescue dogs,” says David, “and this was my opportunity.” David and Brock continued on from Engleberg to the Italian Dolomites as attendees at the International Commission of Alpine Rescue’s dog handler sub-committee winter training workshop. This was hosted by the Guardia di Finanza and attended by 51 dog and handler teams from across Europe. The programme involved four days of practical work with dogs to find snow-buried victims. “Brock doesn’t get a lot of practice given the smaller the amounts of snow here in Cumbria,” says David, “but he held his own with his Alpine canine friends.”
In her Chair’s article in the Annual Review, Jacquie Freeborn talked about investments in our Rescue Centre Control Room and the improved resilience of the building. In this article, she explains her role as Base Controller, how it has changed over the years and the benefits of those recent investments. Jacquie has been involved in Base Control since 1985 and it’s changed a lot in that time: “The Control Room in our old Base was not much bigger than a cupboard,” she says. “I started out supporting the team at base but I was happy driving a Team Land Rover so I soon got promoted into being the radio relay out on the hills.”
One of the biggest changes over the years has been the evolving scale, scope and sheer quantity of technology and equipment involved in the modern Rescue Centre. The opportunity was taken to update things using grant funding that followed the December 2015 flooding: “Our power, IT and communications systems are essential to operations,” says Jacquie, “and they’re much more resilient now as we’ve raised them on to the first floor. The other aspects of the investment that’ve made a huge difference for me are the new equipment in the Control Room and the creation of a second Control Room alongside it.” These changes aren’t just about updating equipment. They also enable people to keep up to date with what’s happening on a call out wherever they are in the Rescue Centre and the second room is ideal
“In 1988 we did 14 rescues in three days from that Base, which must have been our longest ever nonstop shift. It wasn’t worth going home so we were sleeping there and we called in the local WRVS to cater for the Teams so we could keep going.” Visit the Patterdale Mountain Rescue web site at www. mountainrescue.org.uk for latest call out information and Team news
for other agencies or neighbouring MR teams to use during bigger incidents. “The two big screens in the Control Room are ideal for updating logs in parallel with watching progress of the Team on the map software,” says Jacquie, “and I don’t need to keep updating people as they arrive – they can see for themselves on the screens around Base. This avoids crowds of people in the Control Room, everyone’s up to speed AND the second room is already helping joint working.” “After Storm Desmond, we wanted to future proof the Rescue Centre. We needed to make everything more secure, sturdy, flexible and adaptable and I think we’ve achieved that – huge thanks go to Cumbria Community Foundation and other donors for the support that enabled it to happen.”