Busy Easter For Rescue Teams

It's been a busy Easter for Mountain Rescue Teams in several parts of the country including the Peak District, where the Edale MRT was involved in two incidents involving fallen climbers and Snowdonia, where there were two incidents.

New Treatment Used In Rescue

The Edale team had a busy weekend with fund-raising activities combined with two major rescues. On Good Friday the team was called out to Froggatt Edge after a climber fell from a route called Valkyrie sustaining suspected leg and pelvic injuries.

Then on Saturday, the team was called out again, this time to Stanage Edge, another popular gritstone crag, where a climber had falled while abseiling and suffered serious injuries leading to life-threatening bleeding.


Interestingly, at the Stanage rescue, the team used an innovative new substance called Celox to treat the bleeding. It's derived from shrimp shells, was initially developed for the military and helps to promote the body's natural clotting mechanisms allowing serious wounds to be treated before the patient reaches hospital. It is believed to be the first time the treatment has been used by Mountain Rescue in the UK.

A team spokeman says that the treatment 'undoubtedly helped to save the life of the climber in this case'.

In  both rescues the climbers were taken to hospital by air ambulance and are now recovering. More at www.edalemountainrescue.co.uk

Scouts Help Out

Meanwhile the BBC is reporting that a group of scouts from Somerset put their emergency training into action when they found two Duke of Edinburgh trainees suffering from hypothermia on Snowdon, keeping them warm until rescue teams arrived on the scene.

Finally a woman climber broke both her wrists after falling an estimated 25 feet in Vivien quarry near Llanberis. She was treated by members of Llanberis MRT before being flown to hospital. More at news.bbc.co.uk.