Today was Keith Joules's funeral after sadly collapsing and dying
on 20th April en route for a caving trip in Top Sink,
Easgill. This was very well attended and was held at Chesterfield
Crematorium. He was brought to the funeral in the DCRO van driven by
Bill Whitehouse accompanied by Janet Miller.
Afterwards there was a wake at The George in Castleton. Karen and
I were just leaving at around 19;00 and it transpired that there was
a call-out! Apparently a girl had fallen 7 metres in Devonshire
Cavern and had a lower leg injury.
We set off for Matlock Bath via home in Winster, collecting our
caving gear en route and met in the small private road adjacent to
the old New Bath Hotel.
Once changed into caving gear and after receiving additional
information via the police, we had a lift in Mick Earle's hired
mini-bus. It was a struggle making our way up the narrow road leading
up towards Devonshire Cavern with a couple of narrow switch-backs. He
had to admit defeat when he couldn't fit the van between the two
walls of houses bordering the lane, so we left the van in a small
nearby car park and walked the remaining short distance.
There was a fancy-looking off-road ambulance called a Polaris
parked by the track leading to the mine which belonged to a group of
HART paramedics and a small group of paramedics and a police officer
at the mine entrance.
A caver appeared at the mine entrance who was with the injured girl
and he apparently was running back and forth between the further
section of the mine and the entrance as other DCRO team members had
been arriving.
Anyway, we started bringing gear in with Mick Earle acting as
Controller by the entrance and Lee Langdon as underground Controller.
It was decided that I would look after the section of mine from the
entrance to the chamber with old steps near the blocked entrance and
shaft and Dave Harley would look after the section from there to
where the casualty had fallen, a little further in the mine.
After dropping the first bit of kit at the chamber, I continued
onwards and
met the casualty and an EMAS paramedic. It was decide that only her
ankle was injured despite the fall, as she had fallen in a rift which
slowed her down a bit.
Lee had a list of gear to ask for and I returned to the surface to
request the additional gear including 2 Heyphones at my suggestion.
These soon arrived and we set one up at the entrance and I took
the other in to set it up by the blocked-up entrance.
Soon the others were helping the casualty make her way by
shuffling on her behind with assistance as she was wearing a
full-body harness. I laid out the long Slix stretcher on a convenient
flat spot by the old steps on the steep slope of the floor. The
casualty was happier to continue as she was rather than get in a
stretcher.
We packed up the stretcher and not too long afterwards all had
made their way past the Heyphone point so I packed this up as well
after informing Alan Brentnall on the other set.
While following the others and carrying gear, Lee suggested we
head for the entrance which was not far away and get ready to assist
there.
Fairly quickly the casualty was at the entrance and she was
assisted out and handed over to the waiting paramedics. Soon she was
packaged in their stretcher and we followed them down the track to
the waiting off-road ambulance.
After making our way back to the RV point, we got changed out of
caving gear and Karen, who had been at the vehicle helping out, and I
drove home, getting to bed at 00:40.
I was up at 06:00 as usual for work.
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