Cheddar Rescue Article
12/11/10 The Technical Rescue team from A&S SAR helped two stranded climbers in Cheddar Gorge on Sunday 7th November, log no. 516. The rescue featured in This is Somerset on-line news, read the full article here 
Posted on 12 / 11 / 2010
Over 3000 hours of Search and Rescue
27/10/10 The A&S SAR were called-out by Avon and Somerset Constabulary a total of 67 times during the year (7/09 – 8/10) on a wide variety of operations. This amounted to a total 3,350 operational hours helping people far from help. And this doesn’t even include training and administrative time.
Operations ranged from searching for and then rescuing an elderly gentleman from a cliff edge who had been missing for two days, locating suicide victims in remote rural areas and searching through the snow for a lady missing from hospital.
The A&S SAR emergency service co-responded with Great Western Ambulance Service, Avon Fire and Rescue Service and Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service during the year. These multi-agency incidents are when the diverse skills of the different services work together. The volunteers in A&S SAR, the lead search and rescue organisation in Avon and Somerset, bring their essential and unique set of skills from a wide variety of backgrounds, combined with their search and rescue training, to work in partnership with the other emergency services.
To see how A&S SAR has helped people far from help alongside its partner emergency services please click here
Posted on 27 / 10 / 2010
A&S SAR member at ICE SAR
20/10/10 A member of Avon & Somerset Search and Rescue is at the international conference ICE SAR this week. The Rescue 2010 conference is being held in Iceland. Representatives from teams around the world can attend lectures, practical demonstrations and field trips.
All aspects of search and rescue will be looked at with lectures that reflect on incidents from around the globe: Haiti Earthquake, Volcanic Eruptions and Civil Protection, Urban Search and Rescue Capacity in Pakistan.
Rich Sawyer, from A&S SAR, will be focusing on the medical aspects of the conference to support his role in the organisation. A feature on the conference will be posted on his return.
For more details click here
Posted on 20 / 10 / 2010
Local MP Tessa Munt meets A&S SAR
05/09/10 The Wells MP Tessa Munt spent an adrenaline filled Sunday morning in Cheddar Gorge with Avon and Somerset Search and Rescue. Tessa met with the team to learn more about the vital search and rescue work of the organisation before abseiling the world famous gorge. She said ‘I was keen to meet them in their environment rather than in a meeting room’ and described her first time ever abseiling as ‘fantastic!’
Avon and Somerset Search and Rescue is an entirely voluntary organisation performing a challenging and varied service. The team was called out a total of 67 times in the last 12 months resulting in 3350 operational hours. Ms Munt said ‘the specialist service these volunteers provide is amazing, they work in the most extreme situations with fantastic skills and it’s important they get the level of recognition they deserve.’ The MP said she wanted to ensure that the Search and Rescue Team receives as much help as possible to deliver its specialist service which complements the regular emergency services and promised to raise this with the Home Office.
The MP visited as part of the handover of the patronage of the team from Lord Bath to his son. The south side of Cheddar Gorge is owned by Lord Bath who was instrumental in setting up the original cliff rescue team that later became Avon & Somerset Search and Rescue. Hugh Cornwell, Director of Cheddar Caves and Gorge attended on behalf of the Longleat Estate.
Posted on 07 / 09 / 2010
Water Safety and Search Training
25/08/10 ‘Move out into the flow until you feel the tug of the water then sit into it and assume your defensive swimming position’. Let’s be clear, the water wasn’t about to tug me it was about to rip my legs from under me and throw me down swirling rapids with menacing rocks looming under every crest.
This is worst case scenario. None of us want to be in the water on a search but if the worst happens we have to know how to deal with it. As a Search and Rescue organisation we have water in our patch which we sometimes have to search near. It is fast becoming a pre-requisite for members to go through the water
awareness training. Call-outs to assist with flood related incidents are on the increase for mountain rescue related teams. We’d already spent an evening of water awareness training, looking at the hydrology ofwater courses. This day in the River Wye, covered bankside safety and two days in Salcombe will follow up with flood searching.
I was in the worst case scenario now, albeit with two Swiftwater Rescue Technicians on hand to make sure my scenario was resolved smoothly and safely. I was literally swept away by the force of the water. The drysuit, life-jacket and helmet lull you into a false sense of security. Being swept away dispels this feeling, leaving you powerless. Until your defensive swimming technique kicks in.
Relax. Don’t fight the current. Feet downstream. Shoulders down to lift your hips and feet to the surface. Legs bent to absorb the oncoming rocks. Look for the safe eddy areas. Don’t waste energy. Ferry drift yourself to get some control. Back stroke your arms like its going out of fashion. Act all serene in the safety of the eddy.
That’s self-saving. We search in teams following the principle of look after Self, Team, Individual in that order. Doing it effectively is the difference between ‘searching’ and ‘looking’. The ‘searcher’ searches, the ‘search leader’ watches the searcher from as safe a place as possible maintaining communications with the ‘back-up’. The ‘back-up’ is downstream with a throw line. This is how to look after a team so they can search. It’s labour intensive and it takes time.
The ‘searcher’s’ tripped and gone in. Two blasts on the whistle. The ‘back-up’ knows to look upstream at
this signal. Four laps of the rope across one hand (never coiled around the hand in this scenario as the
back-up doesn’t want to be dragged in) the rest of the floating rope is stowed in its bag. Floating searcher spotted. ‘ROPE! ROPE! TAKE THE ROPE!‘ The throw line is deployed. Straight into the V-shaped arms,
which they can do because they’re in a defensive swimming posture. The back-up braces. Using a pendulum effect created by the current, the searcher is swept sideways into a safe eddy area alreadyidentified by the back up.
Avon and Somerset has a whole variety of water courses. Some fast flowing, some slow, many with built structures and a huge number in built up areas. Add floods to this mix just to make things really complicated. This is where we move from the centre ground of people willing and able to be found and rescued to the far reaches of the Search and Rescue spectrum where people are unable and in the case of some potentially despondent casualties, unwilling to be found or rescued. Following our principles, supported by thorough, professional and extensive training, we are an effective Search and Rescue organisation.
Posted on 25 / 08 / 2010