It’s cold. I’m just recovering from the flu and still feeling a bit naff, but when the pager goes off I don’t hesitate and jump into my Discovery and plough through the snow. I stop at base and we’re told that the road to the RV is closed to all bar 4×4’s. Both team Landrovers are busy ferrying people, so I offer the use of my Discovery. Emptied of my usual load, four other mountain rescuers jump in with kit piled high in the boot and we’re off, up to the RV. The road is treacherous but we make it fine and we all pile out. Most of the team is here, and other teams have been called in to help as well. I realise I haven’t got my jacket with me and throw on a skiing jacket instead, stomping around in the snow and grabbing a chocolate bar – I still feel a bit rough.
Our quarry is in this valley somewhere. We start searching – it’s already dark and the snow is falling hard. The snowcover makes it worse as it covers the grass between the tussocks and the tops of the tussocks themselves evenly, meaning that with every step you’ve no idea if you’re going to be standing on a tussock or sinking knee deep in snow. For a moment, the snow slows and I get a view of a line of headtorches and search lamps stretching from ridge to ridge, sweeping down through the valley, a line of searchers led by dogs and handlers searching for the two of them.
Two and a half hours in and I’m tired, wet and steaming lightly in the cold. My skiing jacket isn’t coping with the hard tromping we’re doing and I’m overheating inside it. There’s a call over the radio, one of the dogs has a strike. Adrenaline pumps around my body and as one the line stops, instructed by control to hold position. It’s confirmed, the man and woman we’ve been looking for, alive, cold but very happy to see us. We sweep forward and crowd around, our lights turning that small patch of mountain to daylight. A find! Alive!
We turn and start walking them off, grinning, glad that we’ve found them alive.
A message over the radio: The man’s wife has reported him missing as well, but not to worry, the police told her that we’d found him safe and well.
He blanches.
Did they tell her who I was with, he asks.
A sudden realisation hits us and we try to hide our smiles at his misfortune. We shrug and walk them off.
It’s only later, back in base tucking into tepid pie and chips the police provided that we hear the reaction of his wife to finding out who he’d been with. I left base with visions of his clothes on the snow-covered lawn when he got home.
Truth really is stranger than fiction.
Sorry about the gap recently, I’ve been mad busy sorting Mal’s wedding and other things. This one obviously did not take place recently.
Tags: Callout, missing person, Mountain Rescue, search, snow
This is a quick montage of images featured on the Kontraband.co.uk website.
I have to say that I think this is the most disgusting, embarrassing series of images I’ve seen of Cardiff. I love the city, there’s plenty to be proud of – but of a weekend night it seems to descend into hell.
Where is the local authority – those rubbish bins are far too small and too few. Where are the landlords and licensees that they’re selling alcohol to such inebriated customers without consideration for the law? Where is the Welsh Assembly in the lack of funding available for the police to deal with this kind of behaviour?
We found her sitting in amongst the trees. It was strange really, she was well prepared, but it was all just very strange.
We’d been called at about 1700 to search for a missing person near Swansea. I was at base quickly enough and once I was changed, I got the second vehicle ready to leave and off we went. Blue lighting it out of Dowlais along the A465 to Hirwaun is never fun – it’s a horrible piece of road and with plenty of spray and rain, we held back a bit. Once past Hirwaun, we were on a dual carriageway and then the M4. One last bit of driving through semi-urban areas and we were at the RV.
It was a pretty quick briefing. She’d been missing since the previous night. There was some concern for her safety. There wasn’t much to go on. Here’s your area, do your 300m search. Off you go.
The 300m search area is an interesting statistic. A lot of material has been collated in respect to missing person behaviour and the number of people found within 300m of the point where the missing person was last seen or was last known to be is very high. As a result, we frequently conduct a hasty search of the area immediately surrounding that point.
We’d only been searching for an hour or so – 300m doesn’t sound like much, but a circle of radius 300m is quite large – especially when it’s heavily wooded or scrubland. We’d met up with the second party and were just working out how best to attack the next area when one of the lads who was still walking back to us stopped. It took us a second to realise he was trying to attract our attention, but he’d seen something – and indeed, there she was. In a sleeping back with candles and a magazine, she lay in the forest, cold, wet and by now quite hypothermic.
We wasted no time tending to her and were soon handing her over to the Ambulance service for transport to hospital. The mad rush stopped and we started gathering our equipment – and our thoughts.
I stopped to think. How could she do that? I understand how people can get low enough to feel that there’s nothing left for them – I’ve had some pretty low points in my life and without the presence of good friends I’m not sure I wouldn’t have been in the same boat. But what I couldn’t understand was that she was sat there, under the trees, waiting. Within shouting distance of some houses, she lay there and let the elements take her – and that I couldn’t understand. I can fathom the need to end it all, but to passively lie there and wait…why the torture of waiting?
We’ve searched for a number of “despondent” people over the past few years. Some we’ve found safe and well and helped. Some we’ve been unable to provide anything but comfort for the family with the knowledge that they didn’t suffer. Some we’ve just not found. Each one is unique. You’re never sure if it’s a cry for help or a determined attempt to end it all. I’ve seen all age groups from teenagers to octagenarians, I’ve seen all manner of methods. I’ve accepted each one on it’s characteristics. This search struck a nerve in me, something happened there that I couldn’t understand.
I’m not sure I’ll ever understand how she could wait there, sitting in amongst the trees.
Tags: central beacons, despondent, drive, Mountain Rescue, serach, swansea
I’ve made it home. Just.
I drove up to Aberystwyth tonight to take Sean back for his lecture tomorrow. I checked the MetOffice reports, but after a bit of a snow shower around 1700 this afternoon, the only thing reported was “icy roads” – not normally a problem anywhere other than my street, so off we went. No problems and driving back was fine…until I hit Storey Arms. Well, I didn’t hit it – I’d slowed down a bit by that point. I knew that this was the worst part of my journey and the fingers of white creeping into my lane from the snow told me that it was a little chilly outside. I’m glad I did slow down, because after a little wobble at Storey Arms when I found the black ice, I slowed down a bit more. I was wrong about one thing though.
All the way down from the Storey Arms to the Beacons Reservoir the road was icy. I was crawling along at around 10mph when I started the descent down towards the Nant Ddu Lodge – and I’m glad I was because halfway down the hill, I saw blue lights. Letting the engine slow me down, I saw a police car pulled into one side with a car opposite him, halfway up a lamppost. The car in question had obviously visited both hedges before trying to climb the lamppost, but failed, leaving itself at approx 30 degrees. To be fair to the driver, at under 10mph, I was finding it challenging to keep the car going where I wanted it.
Carrying on down the road, I checked traction at the first Merthyr Roundabout and found that it had returned – looks like the salt’s done its job, I though. I was wrong.
I had a brief wobble over one of the bridges which I’d slowed down for, and so I kept my speed slow as I headed through the Merthyr area and down the next stretch of the A470 to Abercynon. I didn’t so much wobble as become aware that I had very little traction on the next piece, so I let the car drift down to a sedate 20mph and saw another RTC on the opposite carriageway, with another police car in attendance. Keeping the speed low, myself and another car made it down to Abercynon. Now, with the bad weather recently, the mountain road from Nelson has been closed, so I headed down the A470 towards Caerphilly. Keeping a good few hundred meters behind the car in front, we crossed the ice-covered viaduct at Abercynon and carried on towards Pontypridd – I was expecting the Trallwng corner to be bad – it’s an elevated section, banked and a very sharp corner. I was only doing 20mph so had plenty of time to see the police car with his lights on in the opposite carriageway waiting for the RTC and waving at me – presumably because I wasn’t driving like a loon.
The other car and I carried on down the A470 at a gentle pace of about 35mph, slowing down for the odd bridge – unlike the idiot in the white van that shot past us like we were stood still, wobbled precariously as he found the ice on the bridge up ahead and, having stabilised himself, carried on at a speed that was ridiculously dangerous for everyone on the road.
Whoever said you don’t need crampons in South Wales? Never mind the mountain, I almost whipped them out to get back to the house tonight. The car is at the bottom of the hill – I could see the ice shining like glass on the road as I approached and parked the car neatly out of the way. The walk up was interesting – going up a slope with little or no traction whilst hanging on to the fence must have been amusing to the cat who was sat watching me.
So, home safe. To bed for now, to see what joy tomorrow’s weather brings. I’ll be thinking of the lads and lasses that make up the three main emergency services who are out in the cold tonight as I cuddle up in my warm bed.
Tags: A470, Aberystwyth, Brecon Beacons, drive, driving, ice, road, sean, snow, Storey Arms, winter
Just a quick update – yesterday was a bit chaotic but I did manage to get work done and play in the snow though it’s becoming more and more apparent that the road up to my house is bad for weather. I only just managed to make it in today thanks to some judicious gritting by the council.
However, there’s more snow on the way tonight. The MetOffice has issued more weather alerts and further snow fall is due overnight. To add to that, several local authorities are now reporting that they are actually running out of salt for the roads. This, added to the latest alert, could result in some fairly catastrophic results – we’ll just have to wait and see tomorrow. I’ll be rechecking all my kit tonight then…
Tags: snow
It’s been snowing steadily for the last few hours and there’s now a good covering on the ground and on the roads. The main roads were OK on the way back to the house but as soon as I started heading into the Aber valley the roads were pretty bad – I only just managed to get back to the house with some careful driving.
Of course just as I kick my shoes off, the pager goes off. For once it’s a false alarm – random characters, though because I have poor reception here it takes a while to confirm that (thanks Mark!). Either way, it’s been snowing hard and now several of the roads in the area are treacherous to travel. I’m pretty surprised that we haven’t been out tonight at all – although the snow didn’t really hit until quite late giving people the chance to get home and shut the doors and settle down a bit. Speaking with a friend from the ambulance service, he said that the snow’s been keeping people indoors tonight which explains the peace we’re experiencing.
Looking at the snow out there, once the temperature drops overnight I think it’s going to be tough going getting out of here, so unless the snow melts by the morning, I can’t see myself heading into the office. I’ll see how it is in the morning, but at least I can work from home if I need to. I do however wish I was out playing in the snow.
Tags: snow
So, with Traffic Wales showing A465 Highest Point becoming treacherous and those people who live in Merthyr heading home from the office, I’m fairly amused since we’ve got a “light dusting” here.
[Update] It’s started snowing properly here now. Dan is heading out to “rescue” a friend of his who’s stuck in Penderyn with his car in Ystradfellte.
Tags: snow
With the news reporting the end of the world being nigh due to what actually amounts to not very much snow, I woke up to a light dusting covering the neighbourhood this morning. Nothing spectacular although it’s loose snow – it’s blowing around in drifts which is irritating. I took the long way around instead of going over the mountain and on the A470 you’d be hard pushed to realise there was anything different about today. It’s not snowing at the moment, though we’re expecting more snow to start around lunchtime.
Tags: snow
Watching TV? Relaxing?
![Weather warnings [metoffice.gov.uk]](http://www.thinknuts.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/metoffice-20090201.gif "MetOffice warnings for 01 Feb 2009")
Weather warnings (with thanks to the Met Office)
I’m checking my kit. It’s that time of year where wet thigns don’t dry so well and so I’m making sure that my kit is all set. But I have a reason for it. This is the view of the UK according to the Met Office this evening. Those areas not in green are expected to receive snow tonight – we’ve had the first suggestion of a flurry around here, but the wind is whipping it around, so right now the roads are clear.
In the past when heavy snow has hit the Welsh valleys, it’s made life difficult for a country that doesn’t handle snow well and we’ve been asked to help the other emergency services. We have 4×4 vehicles and IM Prints T-Shirts suitable for spending periods of time outside not only in snow but in very cold weather – something that’s going to be pretty prevalent for the next few days.
So tonight, just in case, I’m preparing. Fresh water in a clean drinking bottle. Clean and dry clothes. An appropriate selection of clothing. Flask. Fresh batteries. That kind of thing. This is how I’m spending my Sunday night – and I assume there’ll be a few other people across the country doing the same tonight. Preparing for the worst – hoping for the best.
What are you doing tonight?
Tags: kit, Mountain Rescue, prepare, snow, weather
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