Another Overstated Mendip Cave Rescue

The Old Ruminator

Well-known member
http://www.thewestonmercury.co.uk/news/boy-17-rescued-from-cave-in-burrington-1-5134812

Ruddy ridiculous the turn out and publicity for this. It just gives caving a bad name. I remember my own self rescue. Horrified I tried to escape the melee of Fire tenders, ambulances ,HART teams, Uncle Tom Cobly and all. Nobody was in cave kit !

Next time I needed rescuing ( ! ) we kept it quiet and I got myself out with a broken arm. I certainly wont have a call out in my situation again.
 

martinr

Active member
Maybe it's time we had a non-999 number for cave rescue, a number that goes to MRO not fire and rescue?
 

The Old Ruminator

Well-known member
The trouble is that MRO is voluntary and who might you call anyway. It's too loose an organisation. They had fire services up from several stations for this including Devon. The MRO tried to sort all of this in my case apparently to no avail. The fire service would never enter a cave in any case. It's all part of the current culture of over reaction, lets get some overtime in and we a bored 'cus there are so few fires. The whole thing puts "real cavers" in a position where they would be scared to call out a rescue and have to face the ruddy great circus on the surface.
 

royfellows

Well-known member
I could tell a tale of a whole valley full of police cars, fire engines, ambulances (actually 4 of them), and specialist vehicles, all with blue lights flashing (pretty as it was dark), just to get an uninjured person up a pitch which he could not get up on his own due to fatigue.
 

Bob Mehew

Well-known member
The call out procedure as recommended by BCRC is dial 999, ask for police and then ask for cave rescue.  That assumes you have a person dialling 999 who knows what they are doing.  However, the formal call out procedure as is advertised in BT phone books is dial 999 and ask for cave rescue directly.  Unfortunately the 999 operator so rarely got asked cave rescue (or mountain for that matter) that they often fouled up dealing with the call.  Hence BCRC's recommendation.

But if the person dialling 999 did not know who to call, then I suspect the 999 operator would put them through to Fire & Rescue.  Whilst (don't ask me why) in the Forest of Dean this would be OK as the local procedure actually goes 999 / Fire & Rescue / Cave Rescue (at odds with BCRC's statement); for every where else I suspect that the Fire & Rescue operator on receiving the call will not be aware of cave rescue and just deploy their resources.  So hopefully, you eventually get a congregation of blue light vehicles at a cave entrance and someone who recalls, 'ah yes perhaps cave rescue could help'.  Sadly that did not work in one case and the person died, see http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/search-judgments/judgment?id=eca78aa6-8980-69d2-b500-ff0000d74aa7 .  So yes I can see the poor firemen who turned up saying 'how on earth do we deal with this' and calling for back up resources.  And I am not going to blame them for doing so - after all would you recall a variation in a routine you were perhaps briefed on a year or so before which you had never used?  Or trying to avoid having to stand up in the Coroner's Court and explain why things went badly.

It is worth noting that of the tens of millions of 999 calls made per year, only a few thousand relate to cave & mountain rescue.  So it is not surprising that operators do not recall the process for cave or mountain related rescues.  It is not helped by there being around 50 different Fire & Rescue Brigades, each with their own script for handling a 999 call. 

But if you know what you are doing and follow the procedure, then the police 999 responders should be aware of cave rescue and should institute a call out so only MRO or whoever turn up plus perhaps one police car.
 

martinr

Active member
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The Old Ruminator

Well-known member
We would not dare have any sort of rescue up at Vurley and I hope we never actually need one. Six fire appliances , two police cars , four ambulances , two HART vehicles , paramedics and a host of others tearing up the farmers field would mean a close down. Dont forget the high profile last two rescues at Box mines finally pushed Hanson's over the edge. Instead of these situations calming down they seem to be getting worse.
 

CatM

Moderator
martinr said:
Maybe it's time we had a non-999 number for cave rescue, a number that goes to MRO not fire and rescue?
A nice idea in principle, but given that the current problem seems to be that people call 999 then don't know /remember to ask for the police.... Is another number (that they don't know about / can't remember) really going to help?

Better education about the correct protocol might be the best bet, though as for how to achieve that....

Sent from my XT1039 using Tapatalk

 

cap n chris

Well-known member
CatM said:
A nice idea in principle, but given that the current problem seems to be that people call 999 then don't know /remember to ask for the police....

When I rang 999 for a callout (correctly, according to procedure) the Police told me to hang up, redial 999, and ask for Fire and Rescue instead "because they do that sort of thing". Most people would have followed this advice. I had to stand my ground with them. The failure is systemic.
 

maxf

New member
There are plaques outside the major caves aren't there describing the correct procedure ?

Perhaps the people on the other end of the phone could do with plaques also as a reminder also.
 

Bob Mehew

Well-known member
Plaques / notices are only in place for a few caves other than on Mendip where they are located on the more popular caves.

One of the drivers for this https://www.thebmc.co.uk/who-ya-gonna-call was the result of a poll done in North Wales amongst the cafes and pubs asking people who were there to go out walking in the mountains who would they call in case of an emergency.  About 95% said ambulance.  My previous post drew on the work to produce the "Who to Call" leaflet.

But when within the caving world we can't even reasonably promote conservation (go and check if your club's web site links to BCA's Minimal Impact Caving Guidelines leaflet) then what hope do we have for promoting "Who to call" messages. 
 

al

Member
The notice pictured on the previous post shows the words "DIAL 999 ASK THE POLICE FOR CAVE RESCUE" which could be part of the problem if the person making the call thinks he's already talking to the Police after dialing 999.

"DIAL 999 AND ASK FOR THE POLICE. ASK THE POLICE FOR CAVE RESCUE" would be clearer.
 

cap n chris

Well-known member
al said:
...which could be part of the problem if the person making the call thinks he's already talking to the Police after dialing 999.

That is very unlikely, unless the caller is a cretin.  Anyone who has dialled 999 will know why. When you call 999, an operator will ask you which emergency service you need.

 

Duncan Price

Active member
maxf said:
There are plaques outside the major caves aren't there describing the correct procedure ?

Perhaps the people on the other end of the phone could do with plaques also as a reminder also.

The local call centre (Portishead Police HQ) have had presentations from MCR and even had a load of free MCR mugs.  In the case of this rescue the call out was made by one of the caving instructors who followed the correct procedure.
 
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