This week team members Alistair Greenough and Michael Wakerley attended a five day course on managing searches for people missing from home courtesy of Lancashire Police. Students on the course were a mixture of serving police officers from Lancashire, members from Bolton MRT, Bowland Pennine MRT, Rossendale and Pendle MRT, Bay Search and Rescue as well as colleagues from Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service.
The course was made up of a mix of classroom sessions interspersed with small group exercises looking at the behaviors of people missing from home and strategies that can be used to help find them. A very interesting session was provided by representatives from the Alzheimer’s Society which gave a great insight into how best we might plan searches for people with dementia who have gone missing from home. At the end of the session we were all given the opportunity to become “Dementia Friends”.
The final 2 days took us outside to look at map to ground interpretation to give better appreciation of what the ground we would ask people to search actually looks like and how difficult or easy it might be. Finally on the Saturday Bolton MRT hosted the final exercise where 2 of the students acted as search managers while the rest formed search parties with other members Bolton team to search the moors for a “Missing Walker”, kindly played by team member Mike Jones’s son Oliver who put up with very cold and wet conditions to allow us to put into practice what we had learned so huge thanks to him.
While the aim of the course was to educate us around search management which it did in masses it also provided an opportunity for us to meet people from other teams and services, to get to know their faces and them us so that when we do get called to a real search we know each other a little better which may certainly influence the efficiency and outcome of any search efforts.
Finally we would all like to give a massive thanks to the staff from Lancashire Police who facilitated the course and for allowing team members to attend. This is an incredibly generous act by Lancashire Police which will most certainly help us to help our community in the future.
The team would like to thank Pamela Potts a sports therapist in Little Lever, Bolton and her customers who have very kindly donated a cheque for £110. The money had been raised by customers paying into a kitty and raffling the proceeds off. However as in previous years the winner has donated the money to charity. Thank you so much for this donation, it will be put to very good use. Happy New year to all from everyone at Bolton MRT.
Team members Nigel Booth and Alistair Greenough travelled to Liverpool today to attend a training day on the practicalities of carrying out medical care of a casualty suspended at height. The day was led by Phil Keating a rope rescue and access instructor and Andy Baker MIC and rope access instructor (also previous service in the RAF Mountain Rescue Service). The day was kindly facilitated by John Dagger of Complete Training Solutions who not only provided the location in their rope access training centre but also provided lunch. Massive thanks to John and his staff.
The students on the day came from a variety of backgrounds and included police medics, IRATA rope access technicians, industrial paramedics, fire service technical rescue members, mountain rescue and lowland search and rescue volunteers plus paramedics from various NHS trusts and an A&E consultant. The variety of students leant itself to a really good mix of experience and technical skills in both the roped access and pre hospital care worlds.
The day focused on personal safety, casualty safety and doing simple skills really well and realising that interventions with casualties in these environments should only be carried out if they are absolutely necessary and the best medicine is the rescue itself.
The facilities at complete training solutions were perfect to allow maximum realism with a high level of safety required for great scenarios. Once again thanks to Phil, Andy, John and all the staff for putting the day on.
Today 7 members of our rope rescue team were joined by 2 members from Holme Valley MRT, Owen Phillips and Kevin Robinson to take part in refreshing skills learned on the rope rescue operators course at Lyon Equipment in September this year
Team member Tony Dawson, willing volunteer to be a casualty
Owen and Kevin operating the Petzl ID under the beady eye of team training officer Mike WakerleyPreparing to lower the stretcher
. Skills concentrated on were passing a knot on lowering and raising, raising using pulley systems, vertical lower and raise using a “Barrow Boy” and deviations in the rope system. With Owen and Kevin visiting from Holme Valley it gave a great opportunity to share ideas and thoughts.
The team was contacted at 19:00 hours this evening to assist the North West Ambulance Service who were experiencing difficulties due to the severe weather the region has been experiencing today. The team went to standby at our Lady bridge Hall base but fortunately we were not required. This is another example of the close working relationship the team has with the ambulance service.
In June 2020 we sent over ten fire engines, to a moorland fire upon Darwen Moor as well as a lot of resources from @unitedutilities@BoltonMRT and other agencies attending this major incident incident. @DCCWoods has confirmed that two Lancashire residents have now been charged. twitter.com/DCCWoods/statu…
A large number of police officers are being deployed to areas within Didsbury alongside colleagues from @manchesterfire to support @ManCityCouncil with evacuating residents at risk of flooding from #StormChristoph
⚠️ Severe Flood Warning covering parts of Didsbury, Chorlton & Northenden ⚠️
Please share the below image with friends, family & networks should anyone need info on how to prepare, what to expect & who to contact for urgent care/support.
Learn more: orlo.uk/xlwsbpic.twitter.com/AMelNkAY5U
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.AcceptRead More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
Jan 28 2017
Lancashire Police Initial Missing From Home Search Managers Course.
This week team members Alistair Greenough and Michael Wakerley attended a five day course on managing searches for people missing from home courtesy of Lancashire Police. Students on the course were a mixture of serving police officers from Lancashire, members from Bolton MRT, Bowland Pennine MRT, Rossendale and Pendle MRT, Bay Search and Rescue as well as colleagues from Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service.
The course was made up of a mix of classroom sessions interspersed with small group exercises looking at the behaviors of people missing from home and strategies that can be used to help find them. A very interesting session was provided by representatives from the Alzheimer’s Society which gave a great insight into how best we might plan searches for people with dementia who have gone missing from home. At the end of the session we were all given the opportunity to become “Dementia Friends”.
The final 2 days took us outside to look at map to ground interpretation to give better appreciation of what the ground we would ask people to search actually looks like and how difficult or easy it might be. Finally on the Saturday Bolton MRT hosted the final exercise where 2 of the students acted as search managers while the rest formed search parties with other members Bolton team to search the moors for a “Missing Walker”, kindly played by team member Mike Jones’s son Oliver who put up with very cold and wet conditions to allow us to put into practice what we had learned so huge thanks to him.
While the aim of the course was to educate us around search management which it did in masses it also provided an opportunity for us to meet people from other teams and services, to get to know their faces and them us so that when we do get called to a real search we know each other a little better which may certainly influence the efficiency and outcome of any search efforts.
Finally we would all like to give a massive thanks to the staff from Lancashire Police who facilitated the course and for allowing team members to attend. This is an incredibly generous act by Lancashire Police which will most certainly help us to help our community in the future.
By Alistair Greenough • Training