Karen and I parked at the car park next to the New Bath Hotel along with some other DCRO members as we waited for the search exercise to start at 10:00am. We were briefed by the Training Officer, Ben Stevens. The scenario was that a 55 year old caver had asked for the key to Youd's Level which was unavailable due to pollution. He had told Mining Museum staff that he would just go caving somewhere else. He hadn't arrived home and his wife reported him missing. He was dressed in a green oversuit, was very quiet and his head was loose: that is, the rescue dummy!
There were four members of Woodhead Mountain Rescue Team (who were camping at the Miners Standard in Winster for the planned BBQ later in the evening) joining in. Each joined a team of four made up if DCRO members and I lead a team including Nigel of WMRT plus Ron Price and Mick (can't remember his last name). We were asked to search Devonshire Mine, SO we headed along the footpath and alleyway leading up to the path passing the entrance, When we got there there was a led group of children waiting at the entrance and I spoke to the instructor who said the door was locked and there were no bags or rucksacks around. We reported back to Control that we were at the entrance and were asked to check the other entrances. I had been in the mine once before (with Karen) a few years ago and no one else in the group knew it either. So we decided to head in this way and find the other entrance and shafts from inside. This we did and had a thorough poke around the top half of the mine. I thought that Control would be looking for information so after a quick search we headed back to the surface and I reported back that we found no evidence of someone having gone in any of the entrances.
We were asked to wait for a second group including Mick Earl and Alan Berry, who had finished searching an other location, to arrive and then search the top half and bottom half between us. After a short time the second group arrived and after a quick discussion, we decided to do a more thorough search of the top half while the other team covered the bottom as one of them was more familiar with the mine.
We had another god poke around anywhere we found and found no sign of any dummies. Lee Langdon had given us information on the radio that there was a part of the cave above the main chamber involving a climb and traversing some holes and some ladder which led to an old quarry entrance, but we never found it!
After an hour my team headed for the surface and met the WMRT members waiting their (the had quickly searched the locality while we were underground and also had nothing to report. I reported back and was told to wait for the other team to return. After some time the second team re-surfaced and they asked me to report back that they had thoroughly searched the lower section and also found nothing. Control asked us to return to base.
Once reported back we had lunch and it seemed that one of the teams on the High Tor side of the valley had reported nothing found in a small cave or mine were told to try again - a heavy hint that the dummy was there somewhere and they had either searched the wrong hole or had missed it. There was a report back that the dummy had been found. Ben retrieved it along with some team members in his Land Rover. After changing and a quick debrief, we dispersed.
Tony Seddon was set up at the Orpheus cottage with his new caving gear business "Starless River" so we decided to drop by to have a look. I was interested in an Adventrure Verticale oversuit but he hadn't any with him in my size (he though XXL due to my height). Karen tried out a MTDE harness and I bought a new Petzl Croll and a Raumer stainless steel krab to use as a braking krab. We met Jonathan Reeves who was a prospective new member and had contacted Karen about joining earlier in the week and was planning to come tomorrow for a caving trip.
Afterwards we headed for home for an evening meal and waited for Keith and Pete, who had spent the day digging in Water Icicle Close Cavern, to join us at the Miners Standard for the DCRO BBQ. When there was no sign of them by 7:30pm, Karen and I walk up to the pub and found them already there having eaten a meal. There was poor turnout at the BBQ with only Rick Lewthwaite and his wife, Julie Hardy and Nikki and Mat Adlam-Styles who had come for a short time as Nikki was suffering with a bad cold. After saying "hello" to Rick, etc. (there were the members of WMRT an their families as well) we returned back indoors to join Keith and Pete.
No comments:
Post a Comment