Figuring that time was running out for Sean and I to have a break this year, I booked some time off (just a few days) and we packed the car and left. We had a vague plan – some friends in Betws Y Coed and my sister on Anglesey, but beyond that we could do anything. We packed a tent and everything we’d need just to pitch up for a few nights, filled the car up with diesel and headed off, L-plates stuck on the car and Sean firmly behind the wheel (and me in the passenger seat feeling very nervous).

We started off well with Sean driving quite well. However, it rapidly became apparent that we had to get to Sean’s mother faster than he could reasonably be expected to drive so we swapped quickly and set off up to Llangorse where she was attending a singing camp. Glorious sunshine greeted us as we arrived at what was in fact a very waterlogged campsite but the sunshine boded well for our trip. Toddling off up towards Brecon we hit the A470 and after stopping for tea and scones at Builth Wells, Sean drove us up to Betws Y Coed where we stopped overnight. Over dinner we made our plans for the morrow and the plan we’d decided on was something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time – Crib Goch. However, it wasn’t to be. As part of The Plan, I decided that a weather report was in order. The MetOffice however scuppered our plans (well, I suppose they didn’t themselves…) with a report of 55mph gusts on “exposed ridges”. I think Crib Goch qualifies as that. So we changed our plans and headed into Betws Y Coed instead. It turned into quite a nice day and we ended up taking a drive up through Pen Y Pass and down into Llanberis. A quiet bite at the famous Pete’s Eats and we headed back up to Pen Y Pass where I took the two pictures above. The top one is of Crib Goch from the back of Pen Y Pass. The bottom one is of the weather report as it was at the entrance to the cafe. Standing there taking the first photograph, I have to admit, I was glad we hadn’t attempted the ridge – I had to use a nearby wall to steady my hands in the wind and it would have been significantly stronger at the top.

After a few days around Betws, we headed up to see my sister. It was good to see the kids again, although my sister ended up feeling quite ill, so we spent some time around the house. Despite the lack of walking, Sean and I had a great time. We spent the entire time with limited internet access – at some points with limited access to any kind of communications at all. I barely fired up my computer – no work for any of the organisations I work with. Absolute bliss.

We drove home today – well, Sean drove a fair bit of it. He’s getting pretty good, though he’ll need some more practice before he goes for his test. I’m relaxed, unwound and ready to get back to work tomorrow. What more can you ask?

So, with the Met Office promising gales of up to 50mph, we headed off in the glorious sunshine on Sunday morning, with the remnants of last night’s torrential rain still making it’s presence felt on the heads of the valleys road. Down on the Gower, the wind was gusting uncomfortably high, so the pneumatic aerial mast was only raised a little and control was set up. Tasked with leading a party in an area of fields the police needed covered, we headed off and spent the next few hours making our way through fields of …well knee-high (or occasionally higher) meadow grass – that is, grass with a random spattering of wild flowers and grasses in it. In other words, hayfever hell.

Nevertheless, onwards we plodded working our way through the fields and hedgerows. In searches like this, where there’s a real possibility that the person you’re looking for is dead, you have to look under hedges and in undergrowth in case they’ve crawled in there to seek shelter and died. It’s not a particularly joyful kind of searching and, heartless though it may seem to onlookers, we joke and laugh amongst ourselves, sometimes with exceedingly black humour to try and keep our spirits high.

By 1400 I was slowly collapsing in a sneezing lump of streaming mucous and with everyone’s stomachs grumbling we headed back to the pub for a lunch of sausage and chips. It’s amazing just how good simple food tastes after hard work. With the masses fed and watered, the afternoon’s plans were outlined and with a few changes of plan as more information about the morning’s searches was acted upon, I ended up staying around the control vehicle – good for my hayfever at least!

By 1700 it was decided that we’d done enough and the long job of packing up and making the vehicles ready for the next job, whenever that may be, was started. No sooner had I taken the cap off the generator to check the fuel levels than the pagers went off – area call in the Swansea area. What luck – we were already in the Swansea area. So, hurriedly repacking everything, mobiles, radios and police radios blaring all around us as more information rapidly came in, we jumped into Alpha and headed off – our destination was north of Swansea, in Glais.

The journey through Swansea was rapid – combination of sirens and two-tone air horn works well to clear traffic on what had been a very busy day in Swansea with the Race for Life on. It didn’t take us long to clear the traffic and as we arrived on scene the full details were apparent. Two men had fallen 25m down a cliff face – ambulance and fire brigade on scene, 169 en route in.

A complete contrast to the gentle start to that morning’s activities, helmets and harnesses were thrown on and within minutes the area was empty of personnel as people headed up to the casualty site. I stayed behind to man the radios and start the paperwork. It soon became apparent however that they desperately needed more personnel up on scene. Leaving the incident in the hands of a senior member who couldn’t go onto the hill, I headed off.

169 had already winched the first casualty out as I arrived on scene to help with the second casualty. Helimed was providing some medical assistance along with the paramedic winchman from 169; the fire brigade was helping us with the technical equipment and they’d already cleared a few trees to allow 169 to winch clearly. It didn’t take long for the chap to be packaged properly and his stretcher was soon being passed the 20m up to the winching point hand-over-hand, his IV bag following him. The usual clatter of rotors overhead soon drowned out any conversation and within minutes, the casualty and winchman were on board and rapidly making their way to Morriston hospital which was only a few minutes away, leaving us to clear up and get everyone out safely. Reversing down the track was interesting, and we passed Pete our team leader giving a TV interview at the bottom of the hill on our way out.

It was a good job for what was a long and fruitless search – always nice to end the day on a high note.

After doing my Ambulance shift on Saturday, I headed up to Aberystwyth. Sean and I headed out to a Greek restaurant in town, where I think I surprised the waitress by actually knowing what I was ordering and pronouncing it fairly accurately too. It was a cracking meal and as Sean and I were relaxing in his room later on, the pager went off for the first time in a while. This one was for a search in Penarth for a missing elderly gentleman. Weighing up the options, I decided to not attend – it would be a 100-mile journey to base, 2 hours minimum. Not really worth it – a decision that’s becoming harder to make with rising fuel prices, since I have to pay for my own diesel for going to callouts.

The search continued into the early hours when it was stood down – the team had an ex on Sunday which was supposed to go ahead until the pager went off again at 1000 – a continuation of the previous nights’ callout. Whilst my colleagues were scouring scrubland in South Wales, I was eating ice cream and relaxing on the beach in Mid Wales (sorry guys!). The afternoon peace was broken by another pager message – this time for an area call in the waterfalls which finished fairly quickly. With the afternoon dying away, the search was finally stood down and I enjoyed a peaceful night.

Until last night when, as I was pulling away from Tesco’s, the pager went off. I headed up to base, vaguely concerned about my frozen pizza in the boot. Once there, I found that we had a sighting of a flare in or around the Ystradfellte Reservoir and so we headed up to Storey Arms to meet the Brecon team. With people approaching the valley from all directions, it wasn’t long before we stumbled across some people who had been setting off flares for no good reason and should have known better. I can’t go into detail, but suffice to say, they’re probably not having a good day today.

As I was about to pull out of the layby after packing up, the pager went off again, this time for a possible downed hanglider north of Cardiff. By the time I got to base, we’d been stood down since no actual evidence of the crash had been found. We packed up and headed home where, at 2300, I finally managed to cook my now-deformed and defrosted pizza. I finally collapsed into bed around 0100 and fell deep asleep…

…until about 0145 when the pager woke me – search for a misper in Porth. With feet of lead, I dragged my reluctant self downstairs and headed off to base again. Not much to say about this one, there wasn’t a huge amount of information, it was a horrendously shitty area to search and he was found outside of our search area. By the time I’d packed up the vehicle in base and reached home it was 0600 and I managed a few hours’ sleep before I had to get up for work.

I just hope that this isn’t the trend for the week.

Technorati Tags: callout

The shift started off quiet with no calls from Ambulance control until Saturday morning, meaning that I could get a decent night’s sleep. Of course, a lie in was out of the question as the phone rang at just before 0900 for a call to an elderly lady with a PR bleed. I headed off to the home – it’s a fairly decent place, but it’s more of a sheltered home than a nursing home offering full medical care. Apparently, the lady had been sent home from hospital the week before with a perforated bowel, though that seemed unlikely. Either way, she was in pain and so after only a few minutes of getting her details the crew arrived and she was rapidly taken out to the ambulance. I headed back for some breakfast and a cup of coffee.

Off into Caerphilly at lunchtime to meet an old friend. We managed a decent meal without interruption and I started thinking that I might even be able to get some DIY done today. Of course, on the way back from Asda I had a call, so seeing as I was 20 yards from the house I dropped Sean off, he grabbed the shopping and off I went. The call was for a 54 year old female who’d fallen and had a back and shoulder injury. I found the house OK and headed in – the husband pointed me upstairs where I found the lady bent double over the bed. She’d slipped while showering in the bath and fell backwards onto the taps. She was fairly comfortable so long as she maintained that position and just as I started getting some basic obs the crew turned up. They listened to her chest and suspecting a pneumothorax caused by a broken rib, we got her out to the ambulance quickly and she was blued into A&E.

On the back from that call, I had another, this one to a 98 year old female who’d fallen. Off I went across Caerphilly to find the lady had fallen coming out of the kitchen and had bruised her knees. I took some basic obs, reassured myself that she was ok – the walking around the house proved that. Control called to get an update while I was there which is unusual – they asked if I could clear and since there was a crew pulling up and I said yes. Things had suddenly kicked off with an RTC, a collapse, chest pains, several Difficulty In Breathing calls and a “?CVA – unresponsive”. So I got the CVA. When I got there, the “unresponsive” part was true – he was sitting up and breathing fine but wasn’t responding to us. The crew was coming down the road as I walked into the house, so I gave the chap some oxygen and let the daughter bring the crew up to speed. I assisted in getting him out to the truck and headed back to the car. There was an RRV on as well and I heard him heading off to another job as I packed the car up.

Hoping to go home to get a cuppa, I was still a mile away when the phone rang again – 41 year old female, ankle injury. Ok, no worries I said, where? The answer – “The burger van, Caerphilly Mountain.” “Excuse me?” I queried how far from the road she was and was told that the caller said that she was near the road. I asked to put Mountain Rescue on standby, just in case. I got there quickly – it’s an easy run from where I was and traffic was light – the rain however, wasn’t. I got to the top and there was no sign of anyone with a broken ankle. Back to control who called the reporter, asking me to keep a look out for a woman with a dog. Spotting her across the car park, I asked her for some details. Apparently the lady was some distance from the road. I headed back to the car – by now the rain was heavy and the sky gray – or was it the other way around? Either way, it was cold and wet and getting wetter. I called control back and asked them to arrange for Mountain Rescue – I’d need some backup on this one especially if she was any serious distance from the road. I slung a decent coat on, grabbed my MR kit and my Ambulance bag and off we went.

She was some 500m from the road on a muddy and slippery path. The ankle in question was swollen and slightly deformed and moving it was causing some pain, so I got my KISU tent out (naturally, it was the first thing I thought about this time) and insulated her from the ground. There were 3 other family members and her son, so I put them under the KISU tent too. Meanwhile, I had Mountain Rescue and Ambulance control to coordinate. The ambulance arrived and held at the RV which was the burger van. Police arrived soon after with 2 WPCs slipping and sliding their way up. Helimed – the air ambulance – was rejected due to the fact that the casualty was in trees and Gwent’s helicopter couldn’t fly in this weather. Rescue 169 was an option and after a discussion between myself and one of our MR Incident controller’s, was stood to and asked to make their way to us. The police were happy to leave things to us – the terrain wasn’t good and although they offered the fire service, we really needed MR. Our stretchers are designed to have people strapped into them instead of balanced on top and on this kind of terrain I wasn’t happy with anything else. I had a few conversations people and I think it did show a little of the fact that people aren’t that aware of our capabilities as mountain rescue.

Pretty soon we had plenty of people there and with a blast of entonox, we packaged the lady’s ankle in a vacuum splint and stretchered her off. The team had assessed the path on the way in and stood down 169. Within half an hour she was in the back of the ambulance on the way to Cardiff. I called Ambulance control and advised them that I was going off-service for a while – I had to follow the vacuum splint to Cardiff to retrieve it and then head home to get changed out of my soaking wet clothes. I had a thanks from control and from the police Sargent whom I’ve now seen on a few incidents in the area. I had a chance to chat with the lady in A&E and found that she had indeed fractured her fibula right on the ankle. I wished her well and picking up the splint headed home for chips and a shower and some dry clothes. Despite going back on service the rest of the night was nice and quiet as was the rest of the weekend – I’ve even managed to (finally) finish painting the bathroom.

How was your weekend?

Tonight was agaKin out with the ambulance service – something I’m really enjoying though it is frustrating at times. It’s frustrating because the knowledge that I have in terms of diagnosing and treating some conditions through mountain rescue could be applied here – giving Hypostop to diabetic patients having a hypo; giving Entonox to patients suffering from painful trauma; giving aspirin to a patient suffering from a possible heart attack - just three examples where we could make even more of a difference to the community.

Take the last few calls for example. We had a two hour battle with a lovely old guy who was having a very bad hypo – only the second of his life and he’d had diabetes for some 20 years. When we turned up, the wife was able to take a blood glucose measurement for us and between us we managed to get him to take some sugar and some jam. We can’t perform blood glucose measurements ourselves and we don’t carry Hypostop (actually I do for mountain rescue but can’t use it for ambulance service calls). I’ve had a call to an elderly lady who fell – a “nan down”. She’d broken her femur, that much was obvious from the swelling and deformity, but she might also have done some damage to her knee. I had no analgesia – we don’t carry Entonox – and so I could do nothing for her other than monitor her and keep her company. The last 20 minutes of the hour-and-a-bit I spent with here were very worrying – she was starting to deteriorate and I had nothing I could do or give her to treat her. If the crew hadn’t arrived as I was getting my phone out, I would have been on the phone to control to ask for an RRV to back me up – I was concerned at that point about her slipping into hypovolaemic shock. Finally, a few weeks ago, I saw a gent who was complaining of classic heart attack symptoms, and all we could do was watch and wait. I did call for an RRV on that one because I was worried, possibly not necessary, but I’d rather be dragging an ambulance officer out of bed to come and slap on a 12-lead ECG for nothing than having my patient die.

So a frustrating time at the moment. If the ambulance service insist on sending us to these calls where we are currently achieving nothing but stopping the clock, then at least give us that tiny bit more in terms of skills and equipment that could make such a huge difference to someone’s life.

So yesterday as I started winding up and preparing to go home, the pager went off. An area standby for a rescue on Hay’s Bluff near Hay on Wye. So I headed up to base and caught the first response vehicle about to leave. Jumping on board, we headed off for what is a bit of a trek. We finally got to the pass just as the hill party was within 500m of the road and we pulled up to the incident as the pagers announced that “no further personnel required.” We jumped out and chatted for a while before deciding it was time to head home. Waiting in the Landrover, our deputy team leader’s phone rang – it was Dyfed Powys police asking us to attend an incident in the waterfalls – a missing couple, one with a leg injury.

We quickly got things arranged and headed off down the road for a mostly uneventful blue light drive back to the waterfalls – on the other side of our area. We did have one rather exciting moment thanks to a patch of ice but it wasn’t until we got to Brecon that things started getting really interesting. As we were approaching Brecon, Huw, the deputy team leader’s pager went off. There was what looked like a third incident ongoing. Palming that one onto our team leader for a moment, we continued our journey down to the waterfalls. With hill parties heading into the area from four directions it wasn’t long before we found the casualties. We brought them back to base and had time to relax with a cup of coffee. This third incident was looking like a washout as we packed up to head home to re-pack the kit and refuel the vehicles.

Unfortunately, on the way home, the message came over the radios – our presence was required and so once again we were off. We all went via base to regroup – some people had to head off and we refuelled and put one vehicle back in the garage before driving off. The RV was near Bridgend and the Western Beacons team had already been called so we headed down. We then spent the rest of the night searching - I can’t really go into detail at the moment, but we didn’t get back to base until around 01hrs. We packed the vehicles up and I headed home to a nice comfortable bed.

Works seems like a break after all this…

Today we have an exercise. I’ve just checked the weather.

Severe gales. Snow. Blizzard conditions. Severe hill fog.  Temperatures of -2 degrees before windchill. Winds of 40-50mph, gusting in excess of 65mph. Oh joy. I’m so glad I prepped my winter kit last night.

So it was a well-fed Aled that left the house when the pager went off about 2100. We had reports of a misper in the Beacons and I headed up to base quickly. Asked to head into the Neuadd valley it rapidly became apparent that there was a massive search underway for this gentleman. Both Brecon team and us were out along with some 6 dog teams. I ended up a leading a party from the Roman Road up and over Cribyn and Pen Y Fan and heading off down the north ridge from Pen Y Fan down to Cwm Gwdi. By the time we were walking down the ridge, 169 had come up from Chivenor to help search and spent a few hours quartering the area. By this time, 5am was rapidly approaching and we called off the search for the evening. As I was heading home the pager went off with news of the search restarting at 0600. I headed off to bed.

When I woke up, I wwa happy to find that the misper had been found safe and well. What a night.

So I wasn’t really too unhappy when, at around 1:15pm this afternoon the pager’s shrill tone echoed through the house. “Hurrah” I thought. Now there’s an excuse to get out of hoovering…

I started up to base immediately the 111 message came through and as I reached Merthyr the next message came out – an area call to a lady with a broken leg. RV: Pont ar Daf. So I headed up to base. Chris was already opening the garage door as I arrived and we were soon shutting up the garage again as I piled my kit into the back of Alpha. Lights on. Cockpit check. Seatbelt on. First gear. Drive. Siren on as we reach the junction, and turn right up to the roundabout. Chris tries to reach Lima on the radio and gives up as the sirens go back on for the roundabout. Third. Fourth. Down the heads of the valleys road. Fifth. Sixth. 80 mph on a clear road, lit up like a Christmas tree and Chris is on the radio again. There’s a car ahead but there’s double solid white lines so I can’t pass. I hang back. Down to fourth, ease off, keep the siren off. He sees me and hits the brakes, comes to a stop on a left hand bend. I can’t do anything except pass, so the siren and two-tone airhorn goes on. Check the road, it’s clear, it’s safe, so around we go and off down the road. It’s fairly quiet until we hit the A470 roundabout. Sirens and airhorn, everything stops for us. The vehicles doesn’t deal well with corners at speed, so slow right down for this one. Accelerate away from the roundabout in second. Third. Fourth. Nice clear road. There’s only a few cars ahead of us as we head up the A470.

As we get to the top reservoirs there’s a line of cars ahead. I hang back – no point catching up until we can pass and I accelerate through the dip. Chris hits the siren and I adopt a commanding position on the road – the middle. Cars pull over in both directions as we head up. It’s all going spiffingly. Until, that is, a BMW convertible pulls out to overtake someone else right in front of me. To that driver: you’re an idiot. Fortunately a blast of the air horn made him realise how stupid an idea it was and we passed him. Waving to the speed camera, I keep my position straddling the white lines, taking command of the road. As we approach the turn into the layby, there’s nothing coming and the sirens are finally silenced as we turn in.

Control was set up quickly and pretty soon I was writing the radio logs – three radios, four hill teams, two helicopters and a casualty of unknown location. That certainly made for plenty of radio traffic and before I knew it, we’d found the casualty. The weather caused its own problem though as the casualty was in the cloud itself meaning that neither XR99 – the Dyfed Powys police helicopter nor Helimed – the Air Ambulance could get to the casualty. So this was an old-fashioned callout – mountain rescue personnel searching for a casualty in poor weather.

It didn’t take long. The casualty was on the path between Corn Du and the Obelisk. Our people converged on that location and we rapidly administered first aid and pain-relieving drugs. Before long I was hearing that we were ready for a pickup and Helimed powered up and headed off to pick up our casualty.

I have to say at this point a big thank you to Alistair who runs the “Three Peaks” burger van in Pont ar Daf. He is a star and is always supportive of us, supplying refreshments for us and helping us out. It wasn’t long before he was serving tea to the hill parties as they returned. We packed up and headed back to base and that was it. Another succesful rescue.

Here’s hoping for a quiet night tonight, since tomorrow we’re off to Cardiff to support the guys who are running a half-marathon to raise money for the team. Huzzah.

So when I came up over the brow this morning to find a temperature inversion, I had to stop and take a picture. I’ve seen a few where there’s been valley mist floating around, but this was a true inversion. The office when I got there was in a dark and overcast morning although it’s cleared up to beautiful sunshine now.

It’s days like these that I remember why I love living here so much.