Emergency Services Open Day, Buxton

For many years DCRO have had a presence at the annual Emergency Services Open Day held at Pavilion Gardens in Buxton.
I arrived on a lovely sunny morning at 09:30 to help set things up and spent most of the day with some other Team Members “manning” the DCRO pitch.
As on previous years, the BCA's artificial cave proved very popular with young children as they queued up for a turn, often for several turns to go through the fibreglass mock-up of a small, twisty cave passage.

We were in a good position to see several demonstrations by other organisations such as Buxton Mountains Rescue, the Search and Rescue Dog Association and of course the Fire and Rescue Service.

DCRO Call-out to Devonshire Cavern

Today was Keith Joules's funeral after sadly collapsing and dying on 20^th 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.

DCRO Training at Stoney Middleton

We were split into three groups and I was with a group including Karen recovering a “casualty” played by Brendan Sloan in Merlin’s Mine with spinal injuries and left upper arm injury after a fall.

Afterwards we set up a Tyrolean Traverse between two trees on the opposite side of the path in Cucklet Delf.

DCRO Call Out to Gautries Hole

It was my birthday and I had been to work as usual and both Karen and I had gone to bed. Then at 01:37, the telephone rang and the disembodied voice provided by BT for SMS message delivery via voice calls started. There was a DCRO call out to Gautries Hole. I could here the rain hammering down so guessed it would be weather related.
After taking a couple of minutes to wake up and get out of bed, we started getting suitably dressed to be outside in the cold and rain. Next was getting other kit together quickly such as caving gear, hot drinks and some quick food.
I tapped in a reply to the SARCALL SMS notification system on my mobile phone and pressed “send” so that the reply message would get sent once I was in an area with mobile phone reception and then walked down Main Street to get the Xtrail and then park outside the house and start loading our stuff in.
We drove to the RV point (the usual car parking layby for P8) via Ashford in the Water and the A623 via Sparrowpit arriving to join other vehicles already there after a travel time of 35 minutes at 02:14. After checking in, I sent a text message to my line manager at work to say I would not be in in the morning.
The incident involved a group of 3 cavers who had been on an evening digging session and after the heavy rain, the section of cave between them and the entrance had sumped. Their wives initiated the call out after they hadn't arrived home as expected.
Three cave divers had been called out and had dived through to find the digging team with no problems, just trapped by the sump.
The decision was taken to bring the diggers out through the sump.
Karen was manning (womanning?) the radio in the DCRO vehicle and I set off for the cave with two air bottles in case they were needed by the divers. The path around the depression containing the entrance to the cave was very muddy and required care to prevent falling and adding to the number of casualties. It was also tricky finding the cave location in the dark despite it only being a short distance from the road.
A small number of us were waiting by the entrance and I could here water flowing inside. After what seemed a relatively short period, the first caver arrived after having been brought through the sump.
Myself and two others accompanied him, after he had been given one of the team Mountain Equipment insulated jackets, back to the parking space so that he could check in and get changed out of wet caving gear. The process was repeated for the remaining two cavers.
Soon all the DCRO kit used was also back at the vehicle and after checking all the kit had been retrieved and everyone had been logged as leaving the incident, we set off for home after 04:20.
By the time the car was unloaded and a few things put away, we managed to be back in bed for 05:15.

I stayed at home having taken the day off from work and getting up at 09:30, while Karen had been up at the normal time of 07:30 and managed to spend a normal day at work.

DCRO Rescue Practice at Bagshawe Cavern

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DCRO at Tideswell Carnival

I met Bill Whitehouse in the morning at the DCRO base in Buxton and we drove to Tideswell to park outside the church as part of the carnival during Tidza Wakes.

Karen had gone shopping in Derby in the morning and joined us later in the afternoon and also Katie Eavis, before we joined the procession around the village with floats and other vehicles.

DCRO Search Practice at Stoney Middleton

Karen was spending the day at a DCA meeting in Monyash while I was at a search exercise with DCRO at Stoney Middleton, which I had organised. Luckily it wasn't a bad day with a few showers and also cool so there was less of a tendency to overheat while walking through the undergrowth to find cave and mine entrances.

Parkhouse Hill

Karen was going to be busy delivering leaflets about “Winster's Secret Gardens” and I was planning on a short walk as I was going t be helping out with the DCRO at the Emergency Services Open Day in Buxton from 14:00.
I first drove to Monyash to meet Keith and Pete Collins, who were in Derbyshire for the day for a digging session in Water Icicle Close Cavern, at the café in Monyash. It was very busy at the café when I arrived at 09:30 and I had to wait a little longer than usual to get served.
About 10 minutes after Keith and Pete left, Julie from DCRO arrived to have breakfast before going digging on Bonsall Moor.
After my eggs on toast, I drove to Earl Sterndale and parked by the church and after getting my boots on, I followed the path from The Quiet Woman pub up and over a ridge to drop down near Glutton Bridge.
I passed the small building housing the British Caving Association Library and the grey-painted telephone kiosk and followed the road leading by the ancient limestone reef remnants of Parkhouse Hill and Chrome Hill as it leads to Dowel Dale.
As time was short I decided to traverse Parkhouse Hill and return to Earl Sterndale, which was interesting as I hadn't climbed Parkhouse Hill before although I have traversed Chrome Hill a few times.
I followed a steep well-worn path, in places very steep, which rose up the near end of the hill and was soon at the pointy top. I sat there for a while taking in the views and eating a Mars Bar then dropped down the far side which is steep and broader than the side I had followed up, but nowhere is it as steep as the other side gets in places.
At the bottom of the hill I crossed a field following a public footpath and then crossed the minor road and then the continuing public footpath on the other side which soon joined the path I had taken earlier by the pub back in Earl Sterndale.

After a quick visit home to have a wash and pick up some stuff, I drove to Buxton to join some others at the DCRO stand at Pavilion Gardens for Emergency Services Open Day.

DCRO Call-out for Sheep in P8

We had each received a SARCALL text message during the day about a DCRO call-out for this evening at 19:30 as some cavers had found a sheep in P8 not far from the entrance.
Karen and I drove to the RV point, a field further along the road from the usual parking layby for P8, Gautries Hole, etc. where Pete had already parked the DCRO vehicle with its blue lights flashing.
We found Alan also there and it had begun to snow a bit as we parked near the gate in the field.
Initially I thought the sheep was in Little Bull Pit as this had been mentioned in the message but that was just identifying the rendezvous point. I asked Alan where Little Bull Pit was as I knew it wasn't too far from the road and he pointed towards some small trees not far away.
I collected my head torch from my car, pulled up the hood on my jacket because of the snow and walked over towards the trees on the frozen ground.
I ducked under some small branches and then stepped forward and felt a painful scrape on the top of my head. “Ouch!” I thought, “That hurt!”.
I put my hand to my head and found it was bleeding and also could feel a split in my scalp. Rats. I must have caught the end of a small branch with my head.
I walked back to the DCO van with my palm pressing down on the wound and asked for a bandage. Soon one was found and I replaced the blood-soaked tissue I had been using, which Karen had given me and plonked the gauze pad on the would.
After asking where the nearest Accident and Emergency room would be, Chris, who had since arrived, suggested the Minor Injuries unit in Buxton which he thought was open until around 20:00. We had arrived early and it was just after 19:00 so we left the others to it as Alan had said there were plenty of others expected and with Karen driving my car, we headed back towards Buxton, which was on the way home anyway.
We were soon seen to and a nurse cleaned the wound, saying it looked clean anyway – probably as my hood had been between the end of the branch and my head – and then she applied medical adhesive (basically a form of “Super Glue”, which was originally designed for sticking wounds back together) to the wound to hold it. By now it had stopped bleeding anyway.
So, we were back home by 20:10 after an “exciting” evening.
And the rest of the DCRO members had quickly retrieved the caving sheep back to the surface where it quickly wandered off back to the pastureland.

BCRC Conference Clapham, Yorkshire Dales

Today was the last day of the BCRC Conference. All activities were taking place at Ingleborough Hall.

We started with Pain Relief and went through analgesics and the handling of injured casualties.

There was a graphic demonstration of why you should handle fractures carefully and apply splints by breaking some pigs leg bones with a hammer and examining the sharp broken bone edges.

This was followed by a comparison of various stretchers used by different Teams, using the SRT practice platform to haul a couple if stretchers. One was a modified Neil Robertson stretcher and the other s Slyx.

This was followed by a session on wear and damage on nylon slings and using a Lyon testing rig to find out at what load some “Quick Draws” as used in rock climbing, broke when subject to various forms of damage.

New Quick Draws with no treatment rated at 22KN broke at 24KN. When wet, another new Quick draw broke at 20KN, a 10% decrease. Taking another new Quick Draw and cutting a tear for about 10% of its width resulted in a 10% weakening. This is explained by there being 90% of the original Quick Draw left.

Burning a part of yet another new Quick Draw again weakened the sling as expected, again in proportion to the amount of sling left undamaged. Lastly, a new Quick draw was abraded and damaged for the full width so that it resembled a Quick Draw which had seen plenty of use. This sling was weakened much more than in other cases as parts of the sling's nylon filaments were weakened for the full width of the Quick Draw.

Lastly, there was a good wrap-up session about the week-end and the Conference was over until next time.

Afterwards, Karen and I packed our gear in the car and set off for Borrowdale in the Lake District.

BCRC Conference Clapham, Yorkshire Dales

Although Karen and I had only brought SRT kit (we were planning to spend a week walking in the Lakes next week and had no room for caving kit: Keith was bringing our kit up on Saturday next week as we would be returning to the Dales for an OCC Meet on Leck Fell) and the activities today were all involving being underground.

We explained the situation to BCRC Conference organisers at Ingleborough Hall and we were told it wouldn't be a problem as we would either be on the surface or only near a cave entrance.

After breakfast we joined Pete Roe from Swaledale (also an Orpheus member) plus Ivan Youg and Dave Warren from Scottish Cave Rescue Organisation and Julie Hardy also from Derbyshire CRO in a Cave Rescue Organisation land rover for lift to Leck Fell.

We attended a session on using a Larkin Rescue Frame. This was done over a small lidded pot called Cupcake which was just the other side of the wall from the road up to Leck Fell parking place. Luckily it was a dry and sunny but cool day.

Afterwards we walked up the road to the car parking place and had a lunch of soup and bread plus lovely flapjack provided by the Upper Wharfedale Fell Rescue Organisation's mobile canteen.

The afternoon session involved a session on 2 to 1 hauling at Gavel Pot. What was interesting was the releasable deviation formed by attaching a short length of rope to a karabiner using a barrel knot and the rope was wrapped through a second karabiner then back and forth several times around both karabiners and then the end was tied off.

When the “casualty” reached the “Y hang” on a 2 to 1 haul (using a Z rig at the surface to take in the active rope on the 2 to 1 system), the deviation was released and the rope now formed a Tyrolean Travers.

The “casualty” was then hauled across the Tyrolean Travers to get across the slope at the shaft top.

BCRC Conference Clapham, Yorkshire Dales

I had taken the afternoon off from work and we drove to Clapham in the Yorkshire Dales to pick up the key for Greenclose, the Northern Pennine Club's hut, where we were staying for the weekend.

Then as it has just opened for Registration at 17:00, we visited nearby Ingleborough Hall to register for the British Cave Rescue Council's Conference which was being held in the Yorkshire Dales this year.

Afterwards we drove to Greenclose and put our sleeping bags on a couple of bunks and dropped off some of our gear there. We had camping and walking gear with us as we were moving on to the Lake District for some walking after the weekend.

Returning to Ingleborough at 19:30, we joined Bill Whitehouse, Julie Hardy and Ron Price from DCRO for dinner.  

DCRO 60th Anniversary Celebration

In the evening we went to the Derbyshire Cave Rescue Organisation's 60th Anniversary Celebrations at the Hope Cement Works Social Club which was excellent and well attended with loads of food brought by various attendees.

DCRO Exercise at Giants Hole

Today there was a DCRO exercise at Giants Hole with me acting as Controller and Karen keeping the communications log.

The scenario was that there was a caver with a lower back injury on the near side of the Giants Windpipe.

We had Steve Knox and Pete Dell on the hill above the cave positioned approximately above the Giants Windpipe and Garlands Pot.

Clare and Dave Harley were to lead a team to package the casualty in a Slix stretcher and take it in turns to be the casualty themselves. The plan was to move along the traverse above the Crab Walk and through the calcite eyehole as far as possible with the exercise ending at 14:30. Dave Ottewell had just taken up a position as Leader was tasked with rigging a rope along the traverse.

DCRO First Aid Cover Great Hucklow Fell Race

Karen and I joined various other Team members to provide First Aid Cover for the Great Hucklow Fell Race.

DCRO Practice in Masson Cavern

Karen and I took part in a DCRO rescue practice in Masson Cavern near Matlock.

The scenario was that a number of cavers, maybe 4 or 5, had gone caving yesterday in Masson Cavern and had been missed this morning at breakfast time.

We were split into groups of 4 with a Leader in each group and with Keith J acting as Underground Controller and Lee L organising the exercise. I was leading one of these groups with Brian W, and two Emmas.

I found the first casualty (Andy B) who had “lower leg injury possibly a fracture”. After checking over the casualty I set up the Heyphone we were carrying to report to base but it was not successfully communicating.

Brian and Emma were sent to search nearby. Soon afterwards they found a second casualty (Alan B) who had been separated from his caving mates and suffered light failure and was a bit cold.

I left the other Emma with Andy and followed Brian to check on the second casualty. As he only required spare batteries and was a bit cold, I asked Brian and Emma to escort Alan to the surface.

Meanwhile another group including Steve K arrived and I asked them to search for the third casualty. Both Andy and Alan were sure they were part of a group of three and there were no others on their caving trip. Andy had pointed out the passage where he had come from and last seen the third number of his party, named Marcus. So I asked Steve and the others to head in that direction.

Meanwhile I followed Steve shortly afterwards via a hands and knees crawl and heard voices beyond a short squeeze, Steve had found the third casualty in a dead-end chamber the other side. Again he had “lower leg injuries with possible fractured ankle”.

Other DCRO members had in the meantime got Andy packaged in a stretcher and began heading towards the exit. I found Keith where we had decided to set up the main comms point in a chamber with multiple junctions and brought him up to date.

Returning to where Marcus was located, I followed through the squeeze to find a group of 8 or so DCRO members with Clare H sorting out splints and Dave O sorting out gardening the squeeze and guiding Marcus through as there was no way to get a stretcher through the squeeze.

We got Marcus through and Keith Joule and ourselves decided to agree that Marcus could get through the short hands-and-knees crawl towards the chamber where we had found Andy by shuffling along backwards on his bum, which he did. I went in font crawling backwards moving small rocks out of the way.

At the chamber, Lee asked if we could load Marcus in a stretcher, a Neil Robertson, for the purposes of the exercise and we proceeded to so this and then evacuate Marcus. Once the time had reached the agreed exercise finish of 15:30, we let Marcus out of the stretcher and began making our way out.

At a wet chamber near the entrance with a small stream and pool, we caught up with the other stretcher at the short slippery slope and after they had managed to get Andy up this slope, Lee asked them to also pack up the exercise and start heading out.

We started moving tackle bags towards the exit and then made our way up the short awkward climb to daylight.

DCRO Call-out at Bagshawe Cavern

We had been home for a short while after the day's caving. Karen had put her caving clothes in the washing machine and just after 17:00 we were getting ready to see Mike Harding at Buxton Opera House. Just after Karen had finished in the shower and I was going to have a bath, I answered the phone. A call-out. Typical!

A 14 year old girl, a member of a led party from Edale Youth Hostel, had slipped in The Hippodrome in Bagshawe Cavern and hurt her back.

We drove to Bradwell and joined the other vehicles in the Bagshawe Cavern car park and Karen was asked to help out with the base radio, etc. while I got changed into my caving gear.

A group had already been sent down to see what was happening with a crash bag, etc. and Anne, Claire and myself had a look at how we might rig ropes to assist getting the stretcher up the concrete steps at the entrance.

In the end, Ben, one of the Controllers, decided it would be best to use a single length of rope, even though the steps weren't straight and there was a roof-lowering. 

At first we were told the girl was packaged up in a stretcher and we would be hauling up the stairs in half an hour – which didn't seem likely. Then we were told to join the others underground.

We moved the stretcher through the easy passage after The Hippodrome towards the entrance but as it was mostly narrow it made it very slow and difficult.

By keeping the stretcher on the move, supporting it on our legs as we squatted in narrowings and moved the stretcher along and taking advantage of any slight widenings in the passage to get Team Members to try and get passed from the rear of the stretcher to the front, we soon arrived near the foot of the steps.

I had been tasked to sort out the hauling up the steps and along with Brendan, Simon and three others, we climbed back up the stairs to get ready to help move the stretcher up the steps. Basically we were supporting some of the weight and preventing the stretcher from slipping back down while others on the steps manoeuvred the stretcher.

Just after 21:00, the girl was being loaded into the waiting ambulance and after loading the dirty kit into the vehicle and a quick debrief in the car park, we headed for home grateful that it hadn't taken too long.

It was a pity about missing the Mike Harding show, though.

Casualty Care Exam at EMRT's base in Hope Valley

I spent the morning and part of the afternoon at Edale Mountain Rescue Team's base in Hope taking the exam for the Casualty Care course.

Myself and four others from DCRO were there on the day for the exam along with quite a few from Edale and some other Mountain Rescue Teams.

Everyone took and passed the written part of the exam but things didn't go to well on the two practical scenarios: a Trauma scenario and a Medical one.

Some failed on of their scenarios but were able to re-take and passed. One failed both Trauma and Medical so that was it for him as you are only allowed to fail one scenario and re-take on the day. I passed both mine OK (Trauma was a caver who had fallen with abdominal injuries and broken or dislocated shoulder, Medical was a woman at a fund-raising event with a diabetic hypoglycaemia).

Casualty Care at EMRT's base in Hope Valley

I spent the evening at Edale Mountain Rescue Team's base in Hope on the fourth and final Sunday of the Casualty Care course.
Next, in three weeks - the Exam!

Casualty Care at EMRT's base in Hope Valley

I spent the morning at Edale Mountain Rescue Team's base in Hope on the fourth and final Sunday of the Casualty Care course.