Pmrtrelay summer2013

Winter 2013

Patrick Relay News from the Patterdale Mountain Rescue Team

Drones to the rescue?

We made it on to the regional television news and beyond in July as the Team worked with the University of Central Lancashire’s Aerospace Centre and Media Innovation Studio to see how modern drone technology, combined with social media, might contribute to the search and rescue of the future.

On Thursday 25 July, the AeroSee aircraft, or drone, was launched from the Sports Field in Glenridding, opposite our Rescue Centre and it made a 20-minute flight covering 10 square kilometres in search of a missing hiker – planted by the researchers. Images from AeroSee were relayed to anyone logged on to a special web application. As images were streamed to people’s computers, they were able to tap or click on any area of the image (creating a ‘tag’) where they thought they might have spotted an injured person on the mountainside. At the time, Paul Egglestone, Director of the Media Innovation Studio said: “Drones get lots of bad press as they’re usually associated with civilian casualties in military situations. They’re just a tool and we’re using AeroSee for peaceful purposes, encouraging people to participate in something that could be useful in future.”

technology is available, from GPS and mobile phones for people visiting the hills to the SARCALL system that enables us to work more effectively with other emergency services. The idea of getting people to help with the rescue operation wherever they are in the world is a really interesting idea but I am not sure how reliable the current drones might be in bad weather or at night. Still, we were happy to work with UCLan on the demonstration and we got some excellent publicity from the drone trial too.”

The Team was interested to see how AeroSee worked and whether it was possible to build a community of ‘virtual search agents’. Team Leader, Mike Blakey says, “Mountain rescue is changing as new

Patterdale Mountain Rescue Team will be 50 years old in 2014 - we mean the Team will have

been in existence for 50 years, it’s not the average age of current members!

We are in the early stages of planning how to celebrate this landmark and it is likely to involve a number of events throughout the year. Some of you may

recall that when we commemorated our 40th anniversary, a number of the founder members attended who were able to describe some of the rescues they undertook, often with very primitive equipment.

We have a range of photographs documenting the history of the Team but we would love to add to this

collection if we can. If you have any which could be copied and used we would love to hear from you – please contact us via the website.

We plan to run a number of open days and will be delighted to see you in our celebration year. More news to follow.

Visit the Patterdale Mountain Rescue web site at www. mountainrescue.org.uk for latest call outs

Corrie and Andy’s avalanche story

PATRICK RELAY l Winter 2013

Our canine members Corrie and Moss There are two Team members who rarely feature on the Patterdale MRT members list but who are very much part of the Team – we thought it would be good to tell you a bit more about them below.

Corrie and Moss are the two graded search and rescue dogs affiliated to Patterdale MRT. Andy Peacock has been graded and working Corrie, a red and white Border Collie, for a year and Team Leader, Mike Blakey, has had Moss, a Border Collie, since 2008.

Both dogs achieved their search dog grading in 2012 but the training continues: “Corrie and I attend one residential course for a full weekend every month,” says Andy, “and try to attend as many formal Lake District Mountain Rescue Search Dog Association (LDMRSDA) training sessions, held on Tuesday and Thursday nights and Saturday mornings, as we can. We also attend the week-long winter training course in Scotland each year ... all this on top of the training required to be in the Patterdale Team and, of course, all the Team and LDMRSDA call outs!”

The dogs and their handlers can be called upon to help out at incidents far beyond the Patterdale MRT area around Ullswater. Mike Blakey says: “We often travel to support other teams in the Lakes and Andy and I were both involved in the avalanche in the Cairgnorms in February, in which three people sadly lost their lives (see side box). Just recently, Moss located a mountain biker who had sadly fallen in Kewsick MRT’s area – unfortunately the casualty suffered major injuries and did not survive.”

Anyone who has seen the dogs in action or met them at Team events and fundraisers will know that they love their work – their energy, enthusiasm and obvious obedience is great to see. “Training search dogs can be one of the most challenging and frustrating things ever in mountain rescue,” says Mike, “But the dogs love to work and enjoy nothing more than a toy or treat when they find their missing person.”

Further information about search dog activities across the Lake District is available online at www.lakes-searchdogs.org.

Cheque collection plain sailing Members of the Team crossed Ullswater in the RIB back in August to collect a cheque from Park Foot Caravan and Camping Park.

Staff and visitors at Park Foot raised almost £1000 for the Team with a Family Fun Day earlier in the summer.

Last winter, Corrie and I were some of the first on the scene at a large avalanche in the Chalamain Gap in Scotland.

It was extremely daunting, not only to be airlifted in but also, on arrival, seeing such a large avalanche and the prevailing dangerous conditions.

All the Team training and search dog training kicked in and Corrie and I set to work searching the avalanche debris. Corrie eventually indicated that she had found somebody buried in the snow. I probed the area with my avalanche probe, a 2.5m long metal wand, to confirm her find but couldn’t feel anything buried in the snow.

Had Corrie got it wrong?

She was insistent and kept returning to the same spot and indicating. All through Corrie’s training, the assessors had always told me, “Trust your dog,” so we started to dig and kept probing the area...still nothing!

By this time several other search dogs had arrived and we put them into the hole we had dug in the snow and each dog indicated that there was somebody there.

Eventually we located a buried person under five metres of snow that had set solid.

Very sadly the casualty was to die later in hospital but I know that Corrie gave them the best possible chance of survival. It was a remarkable feat for Corrie to detect somebody buried under that amount of snow and it’s hard to describe how proud I felt of her, and of all the people that have played a part in getting Corrie and I to that level.

PATRICK RELAY l Winter 2013

socks it to the Team bridgedale®, the UK’s leading outdoor sock brand, has offered to supply the Team - and all Lake District teams - with socks.

“Chris Gordon, the Product Manager at Bridgedale, approached us with this generous offer,” explains Team Equipment Officer, Glenn Bridge, “ and it seemed like something we couldn’t refuse. Each Team member gets four pairs of socks, two pairs each of two different weights, twice a year and we’re also working with Chris to see how we can coordinate additional benefits, not only for Team members but, via prizes and events, for our supporters too.”

In all, each year Bridgedale will be supplying the 35 members of the Patterdale Team with 280 pairs of socks– worth over £4000.

“As outdoor enthusiasts ourselves, we truly value the vital work that mountain rescue volunteers do on our behalf,” says Chris Gordon of Bridgedale, “and as a brand we are glad that we can lend our support to their efforts.

For the last 100 years, Bridgedale socks have been built to offer the perfect balance of durability, comfort and performance. Each Team member is being kitted out with Britain’s best-selling hiking sock, our WoolFusion® Trekker, for on the hill use, and our WoolFusion® Ultra Light sock for general duties.”

A huge thank you to everyone at

Bridgedale Outdoor – we’ll think of you over the winter as our feet stay warm whatever the weather and conditions!

For more info on Bridgedale visit www.bridgedale.com

Team bench in memory of a friend and a mountain lover August saw a poignant meeting at the Rescue Centre as the Team was given a bench in memory of Alan Burns, a keen walker and climber who sadly died in December 2010 after a fall into Brown Cove.

“We’ve been pleased to be able to stay in touch with Alan’s family and friends,” said John Williams, Chairman of the Trustees. “His wife, Kerry, children, Evan and Honor, Alan’s parents and friends, have all been amazingly generous in their fundraising and support ever since

“We really appreciate the generosity of everyone on the site,” said John Williams, Chairman of our Trustees. “We thought it would be nice to attend the presentation using our rescue boat as a change from a Team Land Rover.”

“We met up with Site Manager, Mark Foudy, his daughter, Lauren and two members of the staff team who organised the event, Carrie McWilliams and Jess Breeden. They thought they were just handing over a cheque but it was nice to give them a quick tour of the Pooley Bridge lake shore in the RIB as well!”

Visit the Patterdale Mountain Rescue web site at www. mountainrescue.org.uk for latest call out information and Team news

Alan’s accident. It was good to be able to mark that in a small way and we welcomed their suggestion and gift of a memorial bench.”

Bob and Anne Burns visited Patterdale in August and met various Team members for tea and a tour of the Rescue Centre as well as a chance to see the bench in Alan’s memory.

Any fatality hits the Team hard but this was a particularly tough one for the current Team Leader, Mike Blakey who knew Alan well.

“Alan and I met when we worked together in the mountains of France way back in 1993,” explains Mike. “Then, a couple of years later, we learned to paraglide together and Alan managed to land badly and break his ankle - much to our amusement at the time!”

“Of all the things I’ve done as a member of the Team, this will remain with me for ever. None of us ever imagine having to use every skill we have to try to save a friend. It was a tragedy that somebody who loved the mountains so much died in such circumstances.”

“The bench, which now sits proudly outside our base, is an excellent addition. I shall be sitting and sipping coffee on it for many years to come, remembering the good times.”

PATRICK RELAY l Winter 13

Team in action for new cards

Full details of the range of cards currently available from the Team are enclosed with this mailing (or attached to your email – see below) and there are a couple of new additions to the collection.

Our Chair of Trustees, John Williams has contributed “Small Figures on Striding Edge”. This was taken below the summit of Helvellyn on the crag wall in winter conditions, looking to the south across the ridge that forms Striding Edge.

“The figures ascending along the ridge are small and at first glance you might miss them,” says John. “Very often I like to take pictures devoid of humans so as not to distract from the beauty of the landscape but on this occasion they provide a sense of scale showing how tiny man is in comparison to our mountains.”

Out across the Bay The Team held a joint training session with the Bay Search and Rescue Team recently – not an obvious partner for joint working but Gillian Mininch, Training Officer, explains:

they can support us in our work.

Although they operate predominantly in the Morecambe Bay area, especially on the quicksands, they have vehicles that can access other areas too. In September, we paid them a training visit to see for ourselves.”

“Mike Davis and his colleagues from the Morecambe Bay Team visited us earlier in the year to present an outline of what they do, what equipment they have and where

Fourteen members of the Patterdale Team saw for themselves how a Hagglund BV206 all terrain amphibious rescue vehicle with caterpillar tracks could be

Relay online The second shot was taken by Chris Gaskarth, who leads our fundraising.

It features four Team members crossing a snowy ridge during a winter training exercise. Matt Cox (on the left in the photo) thinks it was taken in 2008. “We’d had very few training days in hard winter conditions and it was good that we made the most of this opportunity. As it turned out, the following two winters really put our skills to the test.”

Thank you to everyone who responded to our appeal for email addresses in the Summer Patrick Relay. If you did, then you should be reading this on screen.

Thank you for enabling us to save on printing and postage costs and we hope that the new system works well.

used in very difficult conditions such as deep snow and floods.

“It was a beautiful evening out on the Bay,” says Gillian, “and you could see how such a vehicle might assist us in transporting personnel to areas we may not be able to access with our vehicles. It was also fascinating to find out more about the very different work of another group of Cumbrian volunteer rescuers.”

If you didn’t – and you’re still getting a printed copy of Patrick Relay – we’d very much like to include you in the electronic distribution in future. All you need to do is contact us via the form on our web site (www. mountainrescue.org.uk) with your email address and your Supporters’ Club number so we can update our database.

It would be great to use the email route for as many people as possible and we’re happy to help if you have any queries or problems. Thanks.

Articles for Relay We are always looking for interesting articles or letters from supporters. Please write c/o Patrick Relay Editor, Ogilvie House, Patterdale, Cumbria CA11 0PJ The Patterdale Mountain Rescue Association Ltd. is a registered charity No1063329 and is affiliated to the Mountain Rescue Council of England and Wales.