The Mountain Rescue

IN England, mountain rescue is a free service, funded by charity. The mountain rescue teams around the country offer such exceptional service that it is hard to believe that their history is a relatively short one. Exploring the higher places of England for pleasure began as an enthusiasm of the rich. 

Before the formal mountain rescue was formed, any accident may be fatal as the unfortunate subject may be left for dead unknown or die of their wounds in transit due to the arduous journey over rough terrain with improvised rescue parties, which could prove too much for already damaged bodies. 

‘The leader does not fall’ is a climbing saying that was regrettably not so in the ‘Scafell Disaster’ in 1903. On the Scafell pinnacle a team of four climbers fell to their deaths after the leader slipped, to cause what was the worst climbing disaster that Britain had known. The increase of mountain related activity and subsequent increase in accidents, twinned with the lack of rescue provisions led to first aid and rescue equipment being placed in key areas and rescue posts. 

An accident at Laddow (Peak District) in 1928 was the catalyst for the formation of the Mountain rescue Committee. Edgar Pryor was knocked from the long climb stretch at Laddow in the November at a Rucksack club meet, he fell some 40ft and broke his skull and thigh. Makeshift rescue gear was made at the scene using what supplies were available, forming a splint from a rucksack frame was just one example of the improvisation that took place in a crisis at this time.

A rescue team in action.

After four hours of being roughly carried to an ambulance and and a one and half hour journey onward to Manchester Royal Infirmary, Pryor was in a worse state. The surgeon at MRI, Wilson Hey, claimed that the casualty was so shocked he required a blood transfusion before he could be operated on, and that “the absence of morphia (morphine) with the transport had done more damage to the limb than the mountain.”

Now this Wilson Hey was quite a character. So convinced was he that morphine could greatly reduce suffering in casualties, he went around supplying morphine to the rescue posts without a licence and at his own expense. It is a very good job Hey wasted no time as the government deliberated over the use of morphine, it took fifteen years to get Whitehall to share in his surety in the analgesic drug. Hey argued that, “morphia reduces suffering, suffering produces shock, and prolonged shock causes death.” 

The Nook ale as mentioned.

By 1949, the government came round to Hey’s way of thinking and supplied a stock of morphine to each post, more going to the likes of Glencoe. The use of morphine in the mountain rescue cases is the huge legacy Wilson Hey left and will have undoubtedly saved a great deal of suffering and lives in a relatively short space of time. Today mountain rescue teams (MRTs) have an authorised morphine dispenser in their team. 

The first two MRTs most similar to those that operate today were Coniston and Borrowdale’s (Borrowdale MRT now Keswick) MRTs. The Coniston Team formed in response to the search for Ernest John Harris Sivyer who in December 1946 headed up onto the fells at first light and did not return. An assembly of locals set out to search the area around Dow Crag and Coniston Old Man but to no success. The following day 50 policemen and farmers joined the search in terrible conditions and Sivyer’s body was found having fallen around 400 feet down a gully. Following this exhausting effort, the first civilian mountain rescue in England was established, led by Jim Cameron. 

A 21 hour rescue effort on Great Gable to save a climber who had fallen from the Sharks Fin resulted in the Keswick team’s formation as another tiring effort in terrible conditions emphasised the need for a dedicated force. 

From here the teams sprung up in the individual areas to deal with the needs in their catchments and today work together both through the national body and locally to bring a first class highly trained service to those in need. 

A RAF Sea King, working alongside the Mountain Rescue

Run by just volunteers, the MRTs across England, Scotland and Wales function because of the generosity of others. If you have a local team or know of one that could someday be there for you at your favourite destination, try and show some kind of support, whether it is taking part in the various fundraising events they host, buying a t-shirt for a fiver or making some kind of donation. One of the ways I support my local MRT is by drinking a certain beer. Yep, you heard correctly. One of the local pubs nearby brews their own beer and donates 10 pence per pint they sell to the Mountain Rescue. The beer is brewed by the Nook Brewhouse which has been mentioned on Fell before. The ale is called Rescue Red, which I hope to feature in the near future. A link below will take you to the pages of my local MRT and the Nook’s website for your perusal.  

National Mountian Rescue: http://www.mountain.rescue.org.uk

My local MRT: http://holmevalleymrt.org.uk 

The Nook Brewhouse: http://thenookbrewhouse.co.uk/our-ales-2/

Cheers

#TeamFell