Team provides Standby Rescue Cover for this years annual David Staff Memorial Charity Fell Race

Today the team provided standby rescue cover for the David Staff Memorial Charity Fell Race.

This fell race takes in a course over 6.6 km including 366m of ascent, centred on Jubilee Tower, Darwen and Darwen Moor.

The course this year was slightly shorter than previous years due to United Utilities works to Sunnyhurst Reservoir and the need to avoid this area.

The race organised by Jonathan Stubbs of the Darwen Dashers Running Club (who are long time friends and supporters of the team) has an important aim in raising money for the children’s cardiac charity C.R.Y. (Cardiac Risk in the Young)

It was back in December 1994, that David Staff, who first joined the Darwen Dashers aged 15, took part in his first senior race aged just 17, and sadly collapsed and died whilst competing in the Clitheroe 10K – his first race as a senior runner.

He died from a condition known as Adult Sudden Death Syndrome, a condition that claims the lives of at least eight youngsters a week, many of them active young athletes, and the run is now made in his memory.

Today 162 x runners took place in the race starting at 11.30hrs, in wet conditions underfoot and temperatures hovering around 7c, with the morning mist clearing for the race.

All runners safely completed the course with no retirements or incidents to report.

In total five of our Team Vehicles were present today crewed by fifteen Call Out list members, trainee team member Gary Melia and five of our new probationary members, providing ‘spot pick up crews,’ and maintaining an MRT presence alongside Race Marshalls at the various check points around the route.

This is the last Standby Rescue Cover event for us this year, the team having attended twenty such events in 2014.

Team members departed this event straight away at its conclusion to take part in Incident.

We would like to thank our friends at Bowland Pennine MRT for kindly allowing the use of their Winter Hill Radio Repeater channel, which aided our radio communications on todays event.

A welcome visitor to our Incident Control vehicle parked up at Roddlesworth Information Centre, to co-ordinate our participation, was former long serving Bowland Pennine MRT Team Leader Peter Taylor, who had finished a local walk in the area with friends.