What a day…

Today was the SARDA AGM. It was supposed to start at 1400, so Mal picked me up about 1330 and we headed off up to base. We hadn’t left Senghenydd when the pagers went off, giving us our head’s up that the police had called. Bloody typical.

So, off we head, up over the mountain and up to base. On the way, the pagers are off again, this time advising us that it’s an area call, with a casualty near to Dinas Rock with a broken ankle. We head up to base and manage to catch the last Landrover heading out to the incident and Mal and I jump on board. I’d like to say at this point, that two of us getting changed in the back of a Landrover makes for an interesting journey, with legs and feet sticking all over the place. The SARDA AGM in full swing behind us, we sped over the Heads of the Valleys road down to Pontneddfechan. Listening to the radios en route, we realised that the rescue was already in full swing, but that they’d need some assistance to get the stretcher over some of the more awkward parts of the path.

We arrived to find several other vehicles peppered around the car park along with police and ambulance. A quick check with control and eight of us headed up the path to assist at the worst part. We’d been standing at the nasty part of the path for not five minutes when the casualty came into view. A young lady who’d had a fall and broken her ankle was strapped to our stretcher and seemed to be in good spirits. We helped her down the rocky path and handed over to the ambulance lads just as it started to rain. The car park held a good 40 or 50 spectators watching us with interest as we provided the urgent medical attention that she needed, and as we slowly packed up our equipment and stood around chatting – callouts tend to be about an hour of hard work followed by some good chats, catching up with friends who you haven’t seen for a while. Of the 90 minutes I’d been there, about a third of that was helping the casualty and the rest was chatting and catching up. Eventually we headed back to base to repack the vehicles to find out the results of the voting for the committee positions at the SARDA AGM. We then of course spent another two hours or so at base repacking the vehicles, getting wet equipment into the drying room and preparing the first response vehicle to make sure it was ready for the next callout…oh and chatting over cups of tea and biscuits.

We finally headed home, and I was content to know that we’d done something worthwhile today – this wasn’t a “nutter search” as they’re sometimes called – searches that we feel are a complete waste of time such as the night I spent chasing a woman around a hillside. This was an honest mountain rescue job – exactly what we’re there to do, and we did it well. A good time was had by all.