Nearly twenty team members spent their Sunday practicing crag rescues at Diamond Crag in Eskdale. This was the first opportunity for many team members to use the new MPD lowering devices and practice important crag skills.
The first stage of the day was to set up two pretensioned
Cap
Once this was done team members took it in turns to operate the MPDs for both marsupial rescues and stretcher lowers.
Once familiar with the devices all the rigging was stripped and a scenario was set up. A climber had fallen onto the ledge, and had both a broken leg and possible spinal injuries. His partner was also on the ledge and unable to get off.
After the morning’s practice the team were quickly able to get a doctor to the two stuck climbers to stabilise the casualty. The two main belays were set up and one team member was lowered to take the uninjured climber off the crag.
Finally the stretcher was lowered into position and a team of six carefully manoeuvred the injured climber onto it. All that was left was to lower the casualty to the ground where he made a miraculous recovery!
