Agree with a lot of what Peregrina has said: - most important piece of first aid equipment is a group shelter being able to keep warm makes everything less rubbish and being able to stop and wait for help has prevented a lot of accidents. - if caving solo particularly: survival bag and at...

Mind you both CRO and UWFRA have there own three peak style events that raise a significant amount of money for the teams so its a bit hard to have too much of a go at the competition....

Travel insurance does that all time you never get asked if you've done any mountaineering before when you take out a policy to go to the alps.

looking after people when they are in a crumpled heap isn't a sport and you don't want to have to conduct an experience interview when deciding whos going to deal with it.

Fjell: Competency is relative so if you have some fallow years in a caving club it might well be the case that those trying to restart the caving club have very little competence. For this reason they might chose to take there companions on some very easy trips that you dont need very much...

Andrew: there is a shortage of fit capable core team cave rescue members in the dales. That’s the long and short of it. All 3 teams put together fielded about 15 cavers for the job last weekend that was everyone core team wise. Compare that with cave only teams who can easily field twice that...

That kettle of fish does rather resemble a wall to bang one’s head against :(

Actually when I say there's lots of people who are prepared to make those sorts of decisions in the Dales there really aren't and we desperately need more cavers to join the rescue teams (CRO, UWFRA and Swaledale MRT)

Hywel the problem you have is that rescue teams rely on people taking responsibility for making horrible decisions. Often those decisions involve picking the least worst option and given the situation started of being a cock up there's always scope for it to get worse. There are lots of people...

To address a few things: 1. There is an issue with call handlers not being familiar with the procedure for calling out cave and mountain rescue teams it is something rescue teams are aware of and one of the big stumbling blocks is the turn over of call handling staff. 2. Call handlers will not...

I wouldn't buy anything from Petzl these days. I use a lot of their gear for work where I don't have much choice but their aproach to R+D, customer feedback and recalling hazardous products is appalling. Petzl is 100% profit focused they are not a cavers company and havnt been for a long time...

Worth also having a read of this: https://www.thebmc.co.uk/bolt-failures-on-north-wales-limestone#:~:text=A%20%22Thunderbolt%22%20climbing%20anchor%20in%20place%20on%20a%20route.&text=Following%20the%20catastrophic%20failure%20of,'Thunderbolt'%20anchors%20with%20caution.

The thing to watch out for with concrete screws is that it’s very easy to put too much torque across the bolt heads during installation and this introduces stress fractures which can lead to failure. If the holes aren’t cleaned out well or the concrete screw has been used too many times then...

Casualties going into cardiac arrest at point of rescue is a well recognized phenomenon that has been observed in a number of settings and may be due to a number of factors of which hypothermia is often a significant contributory factor. As a rule handle anyone who has been very cold, in water...

Yes for clarity: - If someone on a rope has had there leg ripped of by a boulder consider a tourniquet - if someone has been stuck in there harness for 15 mins do not even consider anything tourniquet related. Quite apart from anything else how exactly are you going to apply a tourniquet to the...