Saving lives in wild and remote places
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Saving lives in wild and remote places
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Those who join MR Teams are normally expected to have a hill walking or mountaineering background so recruits generally have many of the personal skills needed by the rescuer, but team membership involves the development of a much broader range of skills.
The majority of training takes place within the team, being delivered as part of a structured training program. The training typically covers such topics as: first aid, communications, technical skills (including equipment familiarisation) , search techniques, incident control and helicopter procedures. In addition some teams cover topics as : off road driving, tracking, working with search and rescue dogs and acting on behalf of the coroners office.
Whilst most training is provided within the team there are usually regional training opportunities such as joint exercises and the Mountain Rescue Council provides national training courses in search management and tracking.
There is a gradual move towards the standardisation of training, many teams now have their own formal training manuals detailing rescue techniques and procedures, and Individual training logs are becoming more common.
Clearly this is a huge amount of information to take on board and keep up to date and for many teams training hours exceed the hours spent on callouts.
