A sad day

Well the last 72 hours have been pretty intense for the crew. The weekend heralded an unprecedented 4 shouts, 3 of them involving both boats and 3 of them being cliff jobs. Sadly one has resulted in a fatality after a woman fell from the cliff near the lighthouse. A horribly tragic end to what must have been a superb Sunday stroll.

On top of all this was a fundraising day at Harman's Cross for the RNLI SOS campaign and a 4 mile FunRun for the Swanage Sea Rowing Club and an exercise on Sunday morning. I suspect most of the crew are now feeling a little bit jaded.

To be honest it is all pretty hard to make sense of. We have not had a shout for the last month (not unusual for January) and then suddenly we get not one but 4. And, as is often the way, they continued to follow the recent pattern of being people in trouble on the cliffs.

8pm Saturday night brought a climber stuck about 5 metres up the cliff face at Marmolata buttress. With a bit of a swell running the ILB did a superb job to get Matt ashore then, once he had talked the climber down, to recover them both. Well driven John Deas.

Sunday morning brought an exercise which was followed rapidly by a call to a climber who had fallen from the cliffs and was in the water to the west of the lighthouse. By the time the lifeboats arrived he had been recovered but had pretty nasty head injuries. Coastguard helicopter 'India Juliet' landed it's winchman on the shore and swiftly winched the man and took him to Dorchester hospital.

Both boats were washing down from the previous shout when the VHF call came to return to the scene where a female had been seen to fall into the water from the cliff. Again both boats proceeded at full throttle to Cattle Troughs, the faster D Class Lifeboat arriving first. A Police Officer at the top of the cliff indicated that the ILB should search back eastwards, so the ILB searched slowly eastwards while the ALB proceeded slowly from the lighthouse westwards. The casualty was spotted from the ALB and Crewman John Deas landed onto the rocks from the ILB shortly afterwards. Coastguard Helicopter 'India Juliet' again arrived at the scene and lowered its winchman and a stretcher to the casualties position. Three further crew from the Lifeboat were put ashore to help move the badly injured casualty, who was then airlifted to hospital. Both boats were again released and returned to station at 1510hrs. Our thoughts are with the casualties and their families and friends.

Incidentally, the climber from the previous shout who had entered the water to help recover the fallen climber had become hypothermic at the top of the cliff and was also recovered by helicopter to hospital.

Sadly the lady did not survive.

All at once.......

This guy's a climber. We rescued him. And another...........and another. Busy weekend.

On the blink

Given this year's spate of shouts to climbers, I thought I'd share this photos of my friend Heather climbing earlier this year. It's good to see that she's taken the health and safety notice seriously! Can you guess where she is? There's a free tour of our boathouse for whoever gets the answer correct.

It's funny how you don't give modern appliances a second thought until they cease to work. This morning, as I was writing today's post, my computer screen at home blinked then died (contrary to popular opinion I tend to write my posts at home in the morning, save them, then proof read them during break time at school). This didn't seem good, particularly as there was a very strong burning smell coming out of the top of it. I turned it off and stared blankly at the dead screen. And I'm gutted, it's been a part of my life for 4 years and now it's gone.

Still, looking on the bright side I've just ordered a 19" flat screen thing so it's not all doom and gloom. Let's hope it arrives quickly.

Talking of work, it's now only 3 days until the holidays. Mother has issued her usual summons from Whitby so I will be away next week visiting Yorkshire. This should give me a chance to visit the boathouse there and have a chat with Glen about recent events on Whitby Lifeboat. In my absence Dave, our Mechanic, is going to be a guest blogger for the week. The good news is he knows how to use a computer and take photos. The bad news is I've no idea if, being a mechanic, he can string more than a couple of words together at a time. We'll see!

The weather here is bitter just now, -4 degrees this morning. It should make tonight's exercise a fairly crisp affair. Superb.

Full on

Yesterday was a full on day. Goodness knows what has happened but we have suddenly got really busy. Not content with having our time filled with our excellent first aid course we also had two shouts. That makes 4 in the last 5 days! Not your average December week.The day kicked off just after 1000 when Portland requested that the ALB launch to recover a local fishing boat which had become attached to the seabed by a line around his propellor. He was located somewhere near Durlston head and, in deteriorating weather conditions he was freed and towed into the town slipway. In typically pragmatic 'fisherman' style he shot away a fleet of pots as he was under tow! Less than an hour after it all started 'Bingo Lifeline' was back in the boathouse, refuelled and ready for further service.Then at 1900, half of the crew gathered for the evenings instalment of our first aid course. It was a very practical evening. The incredible Paul 'Sáuvage' had designed an evening of multiple casualty scenarios. We took it in turns to respond in teams of six, while three at a time played the casualties and three at a time critiqued the responders actions. And it went very well indeed. With some very tricky casualties to deal with our fine training kicked in and we got the job done. Jo here had a nasty abdominal wound combined with a subtle but significantly large amount of bruising on her chest. Chad meanwhile had a nasty leg wound and was bleeding heavily.Meanwhile John had two very nasty arm wounds and had a 'life threatening' bleed. Paul and Skid skillfully dealt with this. First with direct pressure, then a tourniquet and finally with a pressure bandage. They were able to release the tourniquet after no more than 8 minutes. Superb!Wing-Co played the concerned friend with a nasty gash on the head. Not a particularly worrying injury in itself but in the context of the scenario one more thing to factor into the 'Triage' equation. He was also a pain in the proverbial!

But what amazed me about the evening wasn't our response, rather it was the high quality of the course and it's delivery. Paul delivered 3 large, complex scenarios to a group of twelve trainees and kept every one of them busy at all times. Of course the responders had to be on their toes, but the casualties also had to think carefully and work hard to play their particular injury or illness convincingly. They were also expected to respond appropriately to the treatment given.........surprisingly tricky. And then those critiquing had to carefully note all aspects of the treatment and then accurately and honestly provide feedback after the event. Awesome.Then, to round off a busy day we retired to 'The Ship' at about 2200 for a quick pint before bed. At least that's what we thought. Half a pint later we were all running out of the door in response to a page from Portland Coastguard. We launched both boats into fresh conditions to attend a climber stuck at the bottom of Guillemot cliffs near Dancing Ledge. As it turned out conditions were too rough for the ILB and she was sent back while still in Durlston bay. As the ALB arrived on scene the Coastguard cliff rescue team arrived also. It was agreed that the sea conditions were too rough for a seaward extraction except as a last resort and that a cliff rescue would be attempted. Half an hour later this was complete and the rather relieved casualty was back at the top and we were on our way home. I've no idea what time we re-housed 'Bingo Lifeline' but I got to bed at 0100.

A full on day.........

Hanging around and wasting time

The Easter break was rounded off for me yesterday with a final tea-time shout. At 5.25 my pager went off requesting the launch of both boats. I just had time before we slipped to call Liz and give her final instructions for cooking our Sunday roast!

As we hit the water we got through to Portland and discovered our task. A selection of climbing kit, rucksacks and ropes had been found at the top of Marmalata Buttress (1/2 a mile west of Anvil Point lighthouse) with no owners nearby. Naturally the Coastguard treated this seriously and asked for us to investigate from sea level. After a good search close inshore nothing was found but with a strong tide running we were concerned that had anyone fallen they would be far away by now. Just as we were about to move further out to sea to search further afield Whiskey Bravo spotted a group of 3 climbers adjacent to Blackers Hole (1/2 a mile further west). The ILB investigated and confirmed that these were indeed the climbers who had left gear at Marmalata.

We returned to station and ourselves, whiskey bravo and the police were stood down. The Coastguard team proceeded to meet the climbers and explain politely but firmly how they could have avoided the drama by simply leaving a note or informing others of their actions.

I arrived home as Liz was carving the Chicken, very god it was too......washed down with a fine glass of Hungarian Chardonnay.

And this life's just a waste of our time
So why don't we get together
We could waste everything tonight
And we could waste and we could waste it all yea
But everybody thinks
That everybody knows
About everybody else
Now now now nobody knows
(Jack Johnson)