Waiting for boarding instruction. At about 8:00 pm on August Bank Holiday Monday, Aberdyfi Search and Rescue Team (ASART) was called to assist in the search for a missing seven-year old boy on Cadair Idris.
The child was part of a larger group from Manchester, who had fragmented into
two parties during their time on the mountain, and each assumed the child was
with the others. The party was lightly equipped, and had no provision for a long stay on the mountain, or for the rapidly encroaching darkness.
As volunteers from the Team assembled, a Hasty-Party was dispatched to assess the situation and met a very confusing scene of separate groups of party members and onlookers spread out on the mountainside. The child had been identified as being stuck on a grass ledge a third of the way down the very steep Cyfrwy crag face, and the Rescuers were able to give a grid-reference to the inbound ‘Rescue 122’ Sea King helicopter from RAF Valley. The very steep nature of his location meant that a helicopter rescue may not have been possible, so other ASART volunteers started making their way up the hill carrying the heavy crag-rescue equipment.
In the meantime, other problems started to appear. One of the walking group at the foot of the cliff, a 70 year old man, was diabetic, and having neither food nor water to manage his condition, was starting to feel ill. Elsewhere in the same group, an injured knee was reported.
After some very skilful flying, and assisted by the still, clear conditions, the winch-man from Rescue 122 was able to secure the child, and the pair were hoisted back onboard the aircraft. Having delivered the child, who was shaken but uninjured by his
experience, back to the Ty Nant car-park at the foot of the mountain, the pilot returned to the base of the cliff to pick up a further four of the party, including the diabetic man.
The ASART members on the hill were just setting about their descent off the mountain when news arrived from North Wales Police of a male paraglider from Cardiff who was benighted on the summit of Cadair Idris, and was resigned to spending the night in the summit shelter. The team prepared to turn back uphill again, but fortunately Rescue 122 also got this information,
making a third trip to the summit area to pick up the man, before heading north to attend another emergency near Caernarfon. The Team was down off the mountain by 11:30 pm for one of their most ‘incident-rich’ call-outs for some time.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-23853982
The child was part of a larger group from Manchester, who had fragmented into
two parties during their time on the mountain, and each assumed the child was
with the others. The party was lightly equipped, and had no provision for a long stay on the mountain, or for the rapidly encroaching darkness.
As volunteers from the Team assembled, a Hasty-Party was dispatched to assess the situation and met a very confusing scene of separate groups of party members and onlookers spread out on the mountainside. The child had been identified as being stuck on a grass ledge a third of the way down the very steep Cyfrwy crag face, and the Rescuers were able to give a grid-reference to the inbound ‘Rescue 122’ Sea King helicopter from RAF Valley. The very steep nature of his location meant that a helicopter rescue may not have been possible, so other ASART volunteers started making their way up the hill carrying the heavy crag-rescue equipment.
In the meantime, other problems started to appear. One of the walking group at the foot of the cliff, a 70 year old man, was diabetic, and having neither food nor water to manage his condition, was starting to feel ill. Elsewhere in the same group, an injured knee was reported.
After some very skilful flying, and assisted by the still, clear conditions, the winch-man from Rescue 122 was able to secure the child, and the pair were hoisted back onboard the aircraft. Having delivered the child, who was shaken but uninjured by his
experience, back to the Ty Nant car-park at the foot of the mountain, the pilot returned to the base of the cliff to pick up a further four of the party, including the diabetic man.
The ASART members on the hill were just setting about their descent off the mountain when news arrived from North Wales Police of a male paraglider from Cardiff who was benighted on the summit of Cadair Idris, and was resigned to spending the night in the summit shelter. The team prepared to turn back uphill again, but fortunately Rescue 122 also got this information,
making a third trip to the summit area to pick up the man, before heading north to attend another emergency near Caernarfon. The Team was down off the mountain by 11:30 pm for one of their most ‘incident-rich’ call-outs for some time.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-23853982