Training Weekend 2011
An action-packed Training Weekend
Local Teams descend onto a frozen moor for the Team's annual Training Weekend
Exmoor Search & Rescue Team (SRT) held their annual training weekend in January. Team members and trainees were joined by members of Cornwall SRT along with trainers from Cornwall SRT, Devon Cave Rescue Organisation (CRO), Dartmoor Rescue Group, Avon & Somerset Police, Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service, and Jon Simons from Tracks 4 Life. The base for the weekend’s activities was The Pinkery Outdoor Education Centre on Exmoor. Team members began arriving early on Friday evening – most of them in time to participate in the first activity, a navigation skills game where members were required to find various locations in the fields and woods surrounding the centre.
On Saturday various workshops and training sessions had been organised including cave rescue, searching swift water, casualty care, tracking, scenes of crime & critical incident management and steep ground rescue. Everyone was able to participate in two sessions during the day. One of the Team’s stalwart supporters bravely volunteered to be rescued from a nearby mine shaft and the Team’s casualty carers received expert input from the region’s medical officer. Others benefitted from the experienced trainers dealing with critical incidents and steep ground rescue. For the first time in several years there was no snow for the training weekend but it was a very cold and frosty day which made some sessions, especially the swift water searching and tracking, particularly challenging!
Sunday dawned clear and bright, perfect conditions for the day’s rescue exercise involving Sea King 169 from RAF Search and Rescue based at RMB Chivenor. The ‘casualty’ for the exercise was located in a steep combe on Exmoor. The helicopter transported teams from various locations on the moor to the casualty site where the casualty was treated, packaged and winched into the helicopter and returned safely to the Pinkery centre. The helicopter returned and ferried everyone else back to the centre thus providing additional embarking and disembarking training with the helicopter. All that was left to do then was to have some lunch, clean the centre and sort out the photographs before making our way home to recover from and reflect on an excellent weekend. Many thanks to all those people who gave up their time to run workshops and training sessions, it was much appreciated by all those who attended.
We hope to see all the trainers who assisted during the weekend at our Rescue Centre opening event in May where we can thank them once again for all their contributions to a highly successful training weekend.
For pictures of the event, click here.