This site uses the Amazon Grace theme in WordPress with one notable exception – the images.
The images in the top right hand corner are randomly selected from a number of images I have from various locations. They’re listed below with some information about each one.
Callout in Porth
Taken on 27th October, 2005, this was taken on my mobile phone, then a Sony Ericsson K750i, at an incident in Porth where a child had fallen into a quarry. The vehicles you can see from left to right are: a Brecon team Landrover; one of our team Landrovers; a Fire Service Lines Rescue unit; a second Lines Rescue unit. Behind me were another few fire service vehicles and we pretty much took over the road that day.
Sunset
This picture is the view from the top of the hill behind my house. It was taken around 2130 in late July 2008. I was on the way home and this was the view that greeted me. This one was with my new mobile, Sony Ericsson C902.
Yr Wyddfa
In August of 2008, Sean and I went to North Wales for a holiday and this picture is of the Snowdon horseshoe. Again, taken with my C902.
Technical Rescue
We were called to an incident near to the Ystradfellte falls in Spetember of 2008. There we found a man had fallen and broken his leg while gorge walking. The rescue to bring his man out took several hours and involved a technical rescue to carry him on a stretcher down from the location of his incident and across the river, from where we could carry him down to the ambulance. Taken with my C902.
Bodying
This is a picture of Fan Fawr and the Beacons Reservoir taken from the other side of the A470 in October of 2005. I was lying on the hillside – at the bottom of the picture you can see the bivvi bag I was lying in. What was I doing there? I was pretending to be a missing person – when SARDA is training its dogs, it needs people to pretend to be missing so that the dogs can find them. It’s normally a nice day out on the hill, unless the weather’s bad. In which case, you hunker down and try to stay dry. Taken with a K750i
Air Ambulance
While I was learning how to be a bar manager in the Carmarthen CAMRA beer festival in September of 2008, my pager went off. Responding from there, we helped carry off an injured cyclist who’d fallen from his bike and was airlifted out by the Ambulance service. This is the air ambulance taking off. Taken with my C902.
Mountain Marathon Event
This was taken in Pont Ar Daf car park in the middle of the Brecon Beacons back in October of 2008. We were marshalling the Mountain Marathon and here you can see two of our vehicles – the first response Landrover and our control vehicle. Taken with my C902
Taking a photo
In March 2007 Malcolm and I decided to go for a walk and started walking up from the Login to Pen Y Fan. This is a great walk with some fantastic views. It was rather windy on the day in question and when Mal stopped to take a photo, I couldn’t resist – and it came out pretty well, with the imposing north face of Pen Y Fan behind him. Taken with my K800i
View from the stone picnic table
With weather that was reminiscent of a July afternoon instead of the late October it was, in 2008 we were marshalling a Scout event across the Beacons. Lee and I were at Torpantau and needed to perform a sweep through to Dolygaer along the forestry road. Doing so, we came across a stone picnic table built to remember a Forestry civil engineer. A touching and beautiful monument, the view from this point was incredible. Taken with my C902.
Mountain Rescue and the Prime Minister
In March 2007, representatives of Mountain Rescue (England and Wales) were invited to visit the Prime Minister to talk about funding. An excellent opportunity for some publicity, I drove our team Landrover down from Wales. Here we are parked in front of the Houses of Parliament with John and Biscuit – a beautiful German Shepherd SARDA dog who looks as though she’s wondering what’s going on! Taken with my K800i.
Foggy street
Living in Wales in an area with such interesting geography I often see “interesting” weather. This was one perfect example – a foggy night in the street outside the house gave an atmospheric feel that came out perfectly in the photograph. Taken in October 2006 on my K800i.
Sunrise search
In November of 2006, we were called to search for a missing elderly gentleman in Bridgend. Starting in the early hours of the morning, the search continued until the gentleman was found a little after sunrise. While we were walking the fields, the sun came up on a beautiful day, in complete contrast to the foggy night above, taken a month before the search. This picture was one of a couple that I took on that search. Taken with my K800i
Sunrise at home
On my way out of the house one November morning in 2006 this view greeted me – I couldn’t resist and stopped a moment to take a photo. It’s pictures like this that I see every day on the way to and from work that make me glad to be living in Wales. Taken with my K800i.
The Long Wait
Taken later the same day as the Sunrise, we had a search in the Neuadd Valley. With the search in full swing, these people were waiting to be deployed into a search area. Taken with my K800i.
Frozen Obelisk
The first few months of 2006 were very cold and we saw some snow and freezing rain in March. During that period, I went for a walk on a particularly cold day where I saw horizontal, freezing rain. In full winter gear, I took this self-portrait at Tommy Jones’ Obelisk where I was covered in a layer of ice. Taken with my K750i.
Searching with vehicles
On a search in the same month, I took this picture while we were looking for a missing young man. Unfortunately, he was found dead a few hours later. Taken with my K750i.
Fiacaill Ridge
Later that March, a number of us from the team took a trip to Scotland to do some winter skills training. I took this picture on the Fiacaill Ridge on the Cairngorms. Here I’m looking back to see Dave making his way towards us as I stand in the lee of a large rock. Taken with my K750i.
Evac
Late in March of 2008, Sean and I were sat in the house relaxing when the pager went off. The incident was for a rescue some 3 miles from home and I was first on scene to find a young lad who’d fallen from a tree and broken his leg. Rescue 169 from Chivenor was rapidly on scene and this picture was taken while he was being winched out. Taken with my K800i.
Aberystwyth beach
With Sean in Aberystwyth I have spent a lot of time there. In May of 2008 we found the weather warm and comfortable and we spent a few hours relaxing on the beach. I managed to get a lovely shot of the man I love, silhouetted against the setting sun. Life can be so perfect sometimes. Taken with my K800i.
Air evac in Swansea
After spending a long weekend on the Gower on a fruitless search for a missing gentleman in June of 2008, we had a call to a rescue just outside Swansea. Two young men had fallen down a rockface, one of them quite a distance. In the background of this image the rising stretcher can clearly be seen with both casualty and winchman. Taken on my K800i.
Rescue at Pont ar Daf
Called to help a young man down to the ambulance after he’d broken his leg, this picture was taken on a July afternoon in 2006. Taken on my K750i.
Big, yellow, paraffin-powered budgie
Occasionally, we get the opportunity to train with the RAF Search and Rescue helicopters. This was taken in March of 2006 alongside the A470 at Storey Arms on my K750i.
Waterfalls
These two pictures were taken in one of my favourite places in the Beacons – the waterfalls of Ystrafellte. Malcolm, Sean and I took a walk in September of 2006 after some heavy rain. Malcolm had his camera and took some great photos of us in the waterfalls – these were neither taken by me nor on my equipment, rather on Malcolm’s Canon EOS 300D.
Cave Rescue
Called to rescue a young Bristol University student, we spent several hours along with cave rescue, the RAF, the ambulance service and the police getting her out of the cave in a cold January night in 2007. Malcolm took this picture, again on his Canon EOS 300D.
Scene of the incident
In August of 2006 we were called to the waterfalls near Ystradfellte where a young girl had fallen down the embankment away from her parents. The rescue was successful and the young girl recovered fully. Taken with my K750i.
Helo Training
In 2005, I moved back from London to Wales. The day that I moved back to Wales, Malcolm and I loaded up my Landrover and halfway home received a pager message that there was a helicopter training exercise. So, with both of our cars full of my worldly posessions, Malcolm and I headed up to Trefl Quarry to enjoy the helo exercise.
Porth quarry winch
One of my first callouts back in October of 2005, we had to rescue a young lad from a Quarry near porth. This is rescue 169 winching him out. Taken with my K750i
