Cornwall Search and Rescue Team in snow rescues

[Daryl]

Cornwall Search and Rescue Team in snow rescues retrieved [url]from http://www.thisisthewestcountry.co.uk/n ... w_rescues/[/url]

Cornwall Search and Rescue Team were kept busy during yesterday’s wintry conditions with one major search and several smaller incidents.

The day began with a callout at 5am to assist police in finding a woman in a distressed state in the Herodsfoot area, near Liskeard.

Although the team were quickly out heading towards the incident, the woman was found by a member of the public and taken to Derriford Hospital by land ambulance.

Fearing that this would be the start of a busy day, the assistant team leader, Jay Opie, decided to keep team members at Chiverton Cross while they assessed the rapidly changing conditions.

Jay said: “It quickly became clear that our four wheeled drive ambulance could be very useful to both police and ambulance service and so we notified the authorities of our availability and moved further eastward where conditions were worst.”

Visiting ambulance stations at Wadebridge and Bodmin en route, the team made their way to Bodmin Moor where they found nothing but children and families enjoying the snow. “We decided to take the opportunity of getting some pictures of our vehicle in the snow for our website before heading home,” said Jay.

But while on their way back, the team received another call to a man missing from the village of Helstone, near Camelford.

“We were travelling through fairly heavy snowfall on the A30 when the call came in,” Jay said, “so we immediately diverted to assist police in the search as well as asking two search dog handlers from the Search And Rescue Dog Association (England) to assist us.

In total, 14 team members, two SARDA dogs, the police helicopter and several police units joined the search that went on for several hours in snowy conditions. Eventually, police enquiries revealed the man had left the county and the team were stood down.

“By the time we got back to Chiverton Cross, and picked up our cars, we had been out for some 14 hours but we were pleased to have done our bit and glad that things didn’t turn out as bad as the 2005 blizzards,” Jay said.

Cornwall Search and Rescue Team is part of Mountain Rescue (England & Wales) and provides 24 hour inland search and rescue cover across Cornwall through a team of trained and dedicated volunteers.