Well, I’ve been away for a few days, so I’ve not attended any callouts, but here’s a quick rundown of the callouts over the last few days:
Friday 22nd (Technically Saturday morning)Â
Drove to my Mother’s on Friday and was about to go to bed when the pager went off – 0114 according to my pager. It was a search in Pontardawe – I was leaving for north Wales in the morning so I couldn’t attend and we were eventually stood down around 0900 the following morning.
Tuesday 26th (Boxing day)Â
At 1411 we received an area call to near Hay Bluff – the ambulance service needed assistance to evacuate a casualty and that was stood down at 1505 – not quite sure what confusion if any was surrounding this one as there were a few odd pager messages – I guess I’ll find out Thursday.
About twenty minutes later at 1526 the pager went off again. This time a search near Crickhowell – a member of the public reported hearing cries of help. At this point I was on my way home and could have responded, but as I was driving back from Carmarthen I spoke with Huw who confirmed that they were going to be standing down shortly and indeed at 2237 we were stood down. No evidence of any missing persons or persons requiring assistance were found.
Thursday 28th
That’s today, this afternoon at 1655 we received a call to search for 3 missing persons with an RV in the Neuadd Valley, our usual stomping ground. At 1957 I got a standdown, telling us the casualties had been evacuated by Sea King. Sounds serious, as helicopter evacuation tends to be reserved for those who are very ill – although advanced hypothermia can be a perfectly valid reason for helevac – hypothermia kills, easier than most people credit it.
So, a busy week so far and I’ve attended none of them…typical. Looks like we’ll easily hit 80 callouts this year if we haven’t already.
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