Spotlight on what it takes to be a mountain rescue volunteer

Providing search and rescue services across one of the largest areas of responsibility in England and Wales, Scarborough and Ryedale Mountain Rescue Team is always busy and often faces challenging situations. To make sure we do this in the safest way possible, we rely on high quality training and exceptional commitment from our volunteers.

To carry out our work, we need to ensure we tailor our team training to suit the often unique needs of our local community, terrain and prevailing weather conditions. At the same time, we need to be able to come together with other teams and work as a single service using the JESIP framework.

Scarborough and Ryedale Mountain Rescue Team (SRMRT) is one of 47 volunteer Mountain Rescue teams affiliated to Mountain Rescue England and Wales. We are an independent charity and exist to serve our local community, regularly working alongside the emergency services and members of local resilience forums as well as providing education on hill safety, promoting the #beadventuresmart message wherever we can.

The team would cease to exist without the support of our community who raise funds, maintain equipment, act as casualties in exercise scenarios and a whole range of ‘behind the scenes’ activities which keep the teams operational.

The training scheme developed by SRMRT aims to recruit, develop and maintain skills to ensure team members can operate safely, efficiently and competently in all conditions.

First, we find our recruits. Every year, we average 80 incidents with 2021 our busiest ever year with 124 call outs. These incidents can happen any time, day or night, can last for several days and it is not unknown for multiple incidents to overlap.

We have found from experience that we need 40 volunteers minimum for our operational team.

To give you some idea of how we reached this number, consider that to carry a loaded stretcher over rough ground needs a minimum of eight hill party members, and this can double or triple for a protected carry out.  A search also needs a minimum of 20 volunteers to make up hill parties, drivers and incident controllers.

To maintain this head count we look to recruit around six new team members each year. We start the process late each autumn with an open evening and a day on the hills for those who have shown an interest in such volunteering.  We share examples of the kind of call outs we attend, these range from a ‘quick’ rescue where the ambulance service simply needs our assistance to carry a patient off the hill to a road, but rescues are often far more complicated than this.

Volunteers can be involved in a more protracted search for missing people, who may be lost or injured while enjoying recreational activities or for vulnerable people suffering from mental health illness or intent to self-harm. We also offer support to Category 1 responders, like the police, ambulance and fire and rescue services during major incidents.

If both parties like what they see, then training begins early in the new year with a view to training in and proving competence in nine core skills including Outdoor first aid and basic life support, search techniques and water awareness.

Much of this is covered in an intensive induction weekend after which the trainees are fully integrated in the regular training with full team members as they too maintain and develop their skills. Training isn’t just confined to when a volunteer joins the team, we carry out core training two evenings per month and a weekend day or night per month throughout the year. The aim is for trainees to prove competence in the nine required modules in six to nine months and achieve ‘callout status’. 

It is a huge pleasure to welcome new full team members and present them with the coveted red jacket worn with great pride by all our volunteers.

This is just the start; team members are encouraged to develop their skills further through additional training and qualifications, some of which is in-house but often external and attracts national accreditation. 

The teams receive considerable support from Mountain Rescue England and Wales which, in addition to helping with the procurement of key rescue equipment and insurance, provides courses in driver training, search management, casualty care training, examination and certification, technical rope rescue skills and media training.

Our highly trained volunteers provide far more than the 150 recommended hours and show a commitment that is impressive and deeply valued by the local community. I am proud to be part of this amazing team knowing that we have highly trained volunteers delivering a professional service in this beautiful part of the world.    

This article originally appeared in the December 2022 print issue of Emergency Services Times and has been updated before republication here.