Agent47 Posted July 23, 2022 Posted July 23, 2022 Two innocent words, but not the ones you want to hear just as you’re about to be lowered down a 65deg slope, strapped tight into a metal stretcher. Seven more words slip into my brain: “I really must stop volunteering for things.” I’ve no idea what the volunteers of the Central Beacons Mountain Rescue team did to resolve the issue, but 30 seconds later I’m back on the move, staring at the sky and putting all my faith in seven Welsh rescuers and several metres of rope. We’re in the Brecon Beacons National Park, spending a day with the volunteers who dedicate their lives to rescuing walkers/cyclists/ motorcyclists/sheep in this part of South Wales. Crucially, we’re here to learn what life is like after the Land Rover Defender. Mighty impressive though the new model is, it’s fair to say that economics and design (after it was Gerry-fied) have meant it has slipped off the radar for the sort of working people who made the original Defender the icon it is. There is one in service with the mountain rescue team in Patterdale, Cumbria, but a lot of others are looking at alternative solutions now. The Central Beacons team is one such example. They used to use a Land Rover Defender 110 and a Ford Ranger, but their shift away from the Land Rover was hastened by a fire at their base, and it has been an interesting, if laborious, process to find a replacement. It’s worth reinforcing at this stage that the Central Beacons team, like most mountain rescue outfits, are volunteers. They all have day jobs, families and lives outside the red jackets. They can get up to 130 callouts a month (the summer is busiest), most of those at weekends and each usually lasting three to four hours. Imagine all that, on top of ‘normal’ life, and now consider that you also need to go through a process of choosing, designing and building an entirely new vehicle. They must have some extremely patient partners, wives and husbands. Other mountain rescue areas had their own vehicle suggestions, but what you soon learn is that not only are these guys territorial – the line between different teams’ areas “can be drawn in blood”, jokes incident controller Jon Goddard – but also each patch has its own specific requirements. Central Beacons don’t need incredible off-road capability from their car, because most of their area is forestry tracks. What they need is comfort, both on and off road, and practicality. Goddard takes up the reasoning: “We needed to look at three criteria: carrying technical rescue items, medical kit and swift-water rescue equipment. We also needed to future-proof it. “The Defender has history in mountain rescue and is a great bit of kit, but the old 110 isn’t the most comfortable or practical. Ninety-five per cent of our use is on road, so we needed carrying capacity and comfort.” The co-ordinating Mountain Rescue England and Wales body gets £250,000 per year in total from the Treasury to put towards every single team in the country. Central Beacons spent £226,000 to get their fleet up and running again (their Renault Master Incident Control van cost £114,000), so it was a massive investment in time and money for this charitable outfit. Mechanically, not much has been changed on the D-Max, but Central Beacons did fit extra underbody protection. There are also winch mounts front and back, and designated attachment points so that ropes can be attached directly to the car. Effectively, the Isuzu becomes a huge land anchor when needed. The winches were a clever thought. Instead of having one winch per car, the Central Beacons team has one between two that can be mounted at the front or back. So no matter which way you get stuck, you can always pull yourself out. “There’s not a lot of point having a winch just on the front that’s only going to pull you further into the mud,” explains Goddard. The pod is the big change and makes life much easier than on the old Defender. There are three doors that open to reveal neatly sectioned storage areas, each one labelled and only as deep as the piece of equipment in it. Literally everything they need is back here, from carabiners to rope, belay devices to a stretcher, plus all the first-aid medical equipment. There are even two safes, holding the pain-relief drugs that are strictly signed out and accounted for. Within 30 seconds of the Isuzu stopping, kit is being deployed where it needs to be. And even to a novice like me, it’s clear to see how easy and effective this car is. We’re here on a relatively bright day (mostly cloudy, but it is Wales, after all), but at night, in the wind and rain, that ease of use is quite literally the difference between life and death. To see how well all this translates into practice, we’re witnessing two different rescues today, the first one involving a dog that has supposedly fallen down a cliff. (Dogs, incidentally, still play a major role in mountain rescue by covering vast distances, even though technology is taking over and allowing the rescuers to pinpoint casualties off the phone’s GPS.) Following a debrief outside the Master, the Isuzu heads off towards the cliff. You can see why the team didn’t need an off-roader that was too hardcore: barring a few sharp stones, you could imagine a well-driven Toyota RAV4 handling this. One person guides the car in for the last few yards, leaving plenty of space at the top of the cliff for the rescue zone, and then the real action begins. Time to help the dog. Despite there being seven people involved in the rescue, there’s no chaos. Every person knows their role and gets on with it. There’s a bit of chatter, but nothing that detracts from the task at hand and with an incredible discipline to proceedings. Ropes are attached to the car, chocks are put in front of the wheels (good practice, but it would have to be one hell of a hound to drag the car over the cliff) and then the rescuers start getting harnessed up. Link : https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/features/unstoppable-4x4s-uk-mountain-rescue
Recommended Posts