Thanks to the seemingly endless succession of wet days in late Autumn and early Winter, team members turned out only once in November and three times in December.
As a result, the number of incidents for the year was down a little from the previous two years at 89. That number excludes the 13 occasions – we call them ‘alerts’ – when matters were resolved without going beyond the duty controller. It also excludes the eight occasions when our search-dog handler went out of area in support of other search and rescue teams. Those numbers, however, don’t tell the full story; it’s the variety of situations with which CRO’s team members deal that surprises people who assume that we rescue only cavers.
During the year we went to only ten cavers, in two groups, each reported overdue in the ‘Three Counties’ system beneath Casterton Fell. We also went ‘underground’ to a visitor who did not heed the sign warning those with a heart condition that the visit to White Scar Cave is strenuous and to a walker who went too close to the edge while taking a photograph of Hull Pot. As team members arrived at Hull Pot, one of the crew of the (non-local) air ambulance was just radioing for a bigger helicopter, with a winch, not understanding that Hull Pot is one of the easier pot-holes to access and from which to haul a stretcher.
On the surface, the 67 ‘Mountain’ incidents involved 33 walkers who slipped, tripped or fell, 17 lost or reported overdue, twelve experiencing medical difficulties or events (three fatal) and ten exhausted, cold or possibly hypothermic, four climbers (one fatal), three fell-runners, a farm worker, a caver on the surface, a paragliding pilot and a cyclist who crashed over a wall. The least seriously injured walker in need of rescue had broken or dislocated a finger and the most curious was a fall from behind the waterfall at Thornton Force, while taking a selfie.
There were eight ‘Local’ incidents – using members’ skills/equipment to assist the Police or Ambulance Service. These involved supporting YAS paramedics following report of a worker’s collapse at a farm building, going to the aid of a couple whose car was stuck in snow and searching for or recovering people believed to be at risk. Sadly, three of these had proved fatal. Although CRO has a trained and equipped water rescue team and has access to divers, neither was deployed ‘in anger’ over the year.
Humans are not CRO’s only ‘clients’. During the year, ten sheep and lambs were rescued from pot-holes, rock ledges, a bog and a culvert, while one dog went lame on a Three Peaks attempt and another fell from the top of Giggleswick Quarry. Sadly, it did not survive.
While the great majority of team members’ time is spent on rescues, training and equipment maintenance, CRO’s constitution includes an element of safety promotion. This is done through our annual incident report – Rescue ’24 – which should be available in mid-March, through our Facebook page and our website – www.cro.org.uk – which carries safety cartoons, a link to our brief YouTube videos and other educational material as well as incident reports from several years. Members are sometimes available to give talks or attend events and often welcome visiting groups – particularly those from local youth organisations. To enquire, please email secretary@cro.org.uk.
In addition to about 60 operational members, CRO has a smaller number of support members who support fund-raising activities and are available for supporting roles (e.g. catering) in the event of a large-scale incident. We do not go out actively to recruit operational members but it would be very helpful if we had a supporter with experience of page design or small-scale publishing who could help with projects, from time to time. Offers to the Secretary, please!
We would like to thank all who have supported CRO, over the year, in whatever way. We are particularly grateful to participants in the Ingleborough Challenge (The next is on the 18th May) which raised over £7,000 and to customers and management of Booth’s supermarket, in Settle, who contributed over £800, just before Christmas.
Report provided by Rae Lonsdale (a duty controller)
