EffSeaBeeToo

The exercise was a cold one last night but this did not prevent us from being very productive. We had a couple of observers along for the trip, one whom we already knew from last month. Pretty frequently we are asked to take people out to sea with us in order to help them become acquainted with what lifeboat crews do in real life. Often they are new staff who have joined the institution and are working in an area where they are required to either talk with authority about what we do, or need to be able to empathise with the job that we do and the conditions that we work in. In Geraldine's case it's undoubtedly a bit of both.

Unfortunately on this occasion I had little chance to chat with Geraldine and John because no sooner had we launched and got started on our exercise than we sighted a flare and went to investigate, (don't worry Gloria...all part of the exercise)!

Coming alongside what appeared to be another lifeboat it quickly became apparent that they had had some sort of dramatic incident and required urgent assistance. I went aboard initially to assess how many casualties there were. As is often the case in these scenarios, there was a man overboard (immediately ties up one boat searching and limits options for casualty evacuation). There was also a seriously injured man who had fallen through a hatch (although it was difficult to access him initially and make a full assessment, the mechanism of injury led me to expect a spinal injury, possibly a break and likely internal injuries). There was the usual 'red-herring' of someone panicking with sea-sickness and a quiet one who appeared shocked. Plenty to keep us busy!

I made the decision to act as the comms person and requested as many first aiders as were available to come and deal with the casualties. Very soon Kev, John, Daz and Nick were onboard and completing their full assessments on the casualties. Not surprisingly the fellow who had fallen began to deteriorate with increasing 'Capillary refill' and reducing breathing rate. Quite rightly Kev and John assessed him as having an internal bleed and flagged him up a priority 1 for immediate evacuation.

In a very short space of time the man-overboard had been found, all casualties dealt with and the stricken vessel taken in tow back to the station. After a quick de-brief and not so quick crew-meeting it was time for a pint in the Red Lion then home to bed.

All good.

Super Sunday

Through the winter we are exercising every Wednesday night in the dark so once a month (the first) we go out on a Sunday morning so we can experience being at sea in the daylight. Except, this morning everyone was engaged doing other things elsewhere so there were too few crew present to make it worth launching the ALB.

Still, the ILB went out and Gav, Oli and Sam had a good trip by the looks of it.

Being on my own with the girls this weekend I was late down and arrived just as they got back in and were in the process of washing down their kit.

Somehow Gav (helmsman) got left with washing the boat off...clearly he has failed to educate the youth fully!

Meanwhile, Deasy and Daz were busy taking part in a local duathlon over in Rempstone forest.

I nipped over there on the way to get our Christmas tree and caught some of the action, needless to say it was a hot, sweaty and muddy activity though it seemed to be being enjoyed by all who took part. Well done lads!

Spare a thought...

For Deasy and Gav who are up in Cumbria at the moment with the RNLI flood rescue team. The Bournemouth Echo has picked up on the story here. Our thoughts and prayers are with them, as they are with the family of Bill barker, the police officer who sadly lost his life during the flood.

Blown apart

Last night's exercise was a medical exercise created and run by Gav. He'd put a tremendous amount of effort into it and produced a very realistic scenario using some excellent casualties, a fishing boat and 'Dead Fred'.



The situation which greeted us as we arrived on-scene was of a fishing boat that had blown up. The skipper was distressed but not visibly injured. There were two obvious casualties; Kim above was burnt to the neck and face, while Emma below seemed to have a rather nasty wound to her arm (bit of it had fallen off)!



Being honest we were all rather rusty. Assessments of the casualties were made but a few bits were missed out and, sadly for Emma, immediate steps to stem her blood loss weren't taken at the assessment stage. However, that's how it goes, scenarios aren't the real thing and I'm darned sure we'd have done the right thing in a real situation!



It was generally our more recent crewmembers who did the first aiding last night and one real benefit was that we discovered that we truly have an impressive depth of skill across the whole crew.



We then had a very thorough and skillful wash-up conducted by Gav and John in the crewroom. Everyone had their say and I think the consensus was that we'd done alright on balance.

Rob also made us sit a multiple choice theory paper to assess our level of 'Skill Fade'. I'm happy to report that no one dropped more than one mark. All good...

Mixed blessing

So the certificates for our recent first aid course arrived last week. Very exciting they are to. The only problem...they have John Deas' face on them!

Paul, if you'd only asked I have loads of much better photos from the course!

Please give generously!

Right, so I promised a few more photos so here they are (once again courtesy of Kim).

I also just wanted to say a huge thank you to all those of you who have given so generously to our fundraising page. So far we have raised roughly £1000 which with the 'Gift Aid' added rounds up to something like £1300. Not bad hey?

Of course if anyone still wishes to donate it is still possible to do so. So please Do...


Darren performed awesomely well. He easily led the team and made us look pretty professional!

John looked very strong on the bike (thanks Jason), tour de farce next year?

As usual I cruised along in my comfort zone enjoying the view.

Darren still looked annoyingly strong at the finish.

Indeed, many of the supporters looked more jaded than Darren! Notice the dynamic of this photo. All eyes are focused on Deasy...presumably he is in the middle of telling them all how well he did?!

Spreading the word

Is something which we as lifeboat crew feel pretty passionate about. We strongly believe that what we do is vital work and worthy of being brought to as many people's attention as possible. Therefore it is no surprise that there is no shortage of volunteers from the crew when we are asked to give talks and presentations to people.

Yesterday Becky, Deasy and I went over to Lady St Mary's school in Wareham to talk to their Key Stage 1 and 2 children about our work and also to deliver the standard SeaSafety message. Not surprisingly we had a pretty enthusiastic and captive audience.

Of course, I'm pretty used to this sort of thing so it holds no fears for me. However, Becky and Deasy both found it a bit more intimidating. I think they were also both surprised by how hard you have to try to lower the level of your language when speaking to such a young audience (John struggles not to talk like a design engineer)!

Anyway, a great visit and thanks to Ginna (Miss Presland), the staff and pupils of Lady St Mary's for being so welcoming and their hospitality.

Update

Liz is back from her bike ride with two of the Lifeboat crew (John and Darren) and has news of the shout. Apparently someone had fallen from the cliffs and needed evacuating. I understand that Rescue Helicopter 106 got there first so airlifted the casualty. Full details in the morning.

Thanks to MarkR for his thoughts

Good night!

A member of the public reported seeing a red flare........

and in fact it was me.

Stood on my deck last night taking in the fine view of this square rigger in the bay John Deas, Liz and I spotted what looked very definitely like a red flare. Indeed, it was followed by 2 more which also both looked like red flares. So I called the coastguard, told them what I'd seen, gave my position and a line of bearing to what we'd seen and left it in their hands. In all likelihood it was a prank but what else could I do. If you see what looks like a red flare out there you report it.......don't you? After all, it could be you out there in need of assistance!

Obviously I've heard nothing since so it could have been anything, or something. I wonder.

Skill fade

There is no doubt that over time skills fade with lack of use. The RNLI invests a lot of time and money training it's crews in order to provide them with the skills needed to deal with the incidents they attend. It's not surprising then that they also wish to analyse how effective any new course or training method is. With this in mind, during our exercise last night we had a fairly comprehensive and realistic medical incident to deal with.

Our second Coxswain Robert had brought a Severn class lifeboat from Poole containing the full 1st aid training team from Poole, Howard Ramm and three casualties. In the course of our exercise we were tasked to attend this 'casualty' which had experienced an explosion onboard. The ILB got there first and tied up alongside allowing one person to attend each casualty.

Gavin was dealing with a fellow who was unconscious, had no airway and an immediate life threatening bleed. In pretty short order he temporarily stemmed the flow with a fist in the groin, applied a CAT (Combat Application Tourniquet) and then established an airway whereupon the casualty began breathing. As soon as the ALB crew arrived he had enough hands to administer Oxygen and begin immobilising an open fracture to the lower leg.

Meanwhile Chad had begun his assessment of the second casualty. She had rapid and shallow breathing and was propped in a tripod position so was quickly assessed as 'Big Sick' despite having no injuries (she was complaining of chest pain). Chad moved her to a more comfortable position, made a great job of reassuring her then continued with his assessment. It turned out she was under investigation by her GP for a heart condition. Chad got out his check cards and correctly applied GTN and a dose of Aspirin.

The extra hands who had arrived onboard from the ALB were deployed to help with each of the casualties. Dave established an equipment cache while I visited each of the casualties to establish our priorities for evacuation. Interestingly it was our third casualty, dealt with by John Deas who became our highest priority, despite being a walker and so a P3. She had been caught in the blast and had burns to her hands, neck and face. John dressed her hands with 'cling-film' then put her on oxygen. Our concern was that her breathing was laboured and seemed to be getting worse. Needless to say we suspected internal burns to her throat and perhaps lungs so wanted her treated ashore as a priority.

And with that we began our evacuation, no easy feat with two moving boats at sea but achieved safely and speedily.

Our subsequent debrief seemed to show that we had mostly treated the right things and done enough to keep the casualties alive! Indeed all of the staff seemed pleased with the relatively low level of skill fade shown across the crew. That's not so say that there wasn't stuff that we'd forgotten, however, we seemed to have remembered a great deal more and were more confident than after previous courses.

A good result I feel.............

Swimming and Smart Cars

In testament to the RNLI, staff at the RNLI Headquarters in Poole regularly carry out their own fund raising events. Last Friday a Swimathon was organised by Brett Shepherd. Brett is running the London Marathon this year and thought a Swimathon would be a good way of involving others in his fund raising efforts. Willing (I use the term loosely) staff volunteers took to the freezing cold survival pool. Not being a heated facility a variety of swimming kit was adorned, including wetsuits, dry suits and Speedo’s! The target of 26 miles had been set and 31 people rose to the challenge.


The picture shows Bob Bradfield, who is a member of Poole Coastguard and works here at the RNLI and managed 50 lengths in a dry suit. Our very own John Deas also took part, topping the table with a 106 lengths.

In total the team swam over 30 miles raising more than £1000. A great effort by all who took part.

On a separate note I look forward to seeing our local Coastguards in their smart new vehicles! Further details can be found on their blog, http://swanagecoastguard.blogspot.com/

Windy start

Well, it would seem that all the anticipated visitors to Swanage this Easter weekend have well and truly arrived. As I walked the dog this morning I watched crowds of people hurrying down to the town for morning teashop visits, breakfasts in cafe's and pottering time in the shops.

I also bumped into the lovely Kim and Becky, out with Ben (Gav's dog) - they too were battling with the strong windy gusts which seem to have arrived with the crowds.

It's another day for fundraising with the Swanage Sea Rowing Club. John Deas has got the crew organized to come into town this afternoon for a rowing competition against the fire brigade - winners get a crate of beer... should be a good turn out then!

Pics to follow later........

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.

Training partner

A couple of weeks ago John Deas decided that he too would like to train for and take part in the Swanage triathlon. So I have a training partner. And believe me John makes a good training partner. You see, he's ever so slightly competitive and so he is always going to make you go that little bit further and try that little bit harder.

So on Tuesday we went to the pool and churned out 1500m which is a good addition to the training so far. We hope to do this each Tuesday and perhaps also get a bike ride in together every now and then.

Of course the funniest thing is that John understood that we were going to do the Sprint distance triathlon (400m swim, 15 mile cycle and 4 mile run). Imagine his horror then on discovering last night that in fact we're going to do the full Olympic distance (1500m, 40km and 10km). Luckily John is not the sort of person to back out of anything.

Seeing double

Well, I was right, it was cold last night. We still had a profitable exercise though. In a rare occurrence we simultaneously had two lifeboats on station. The 'Robert Charles Brown' has had her repairs completed so was brought back to us from Poole by Rob, John D, Gav and a few others.Martin decided that we should use the opportunity to exercise double the number of crew and take both boats out to sea and do some towing and close quarters manoeuvring.On completion of the exercise we tied alongside the pier and swapped our kit from 'Bingo Lifeline' onto the 'Robert Charles Brown' and vice-versa. We then returned RCB to her place in the boathouse and had our crew meeting. Not huge amounts were discussed though Nick and Oli came to the end of their Probationary period and became full crewmembers so congratulations are in order. We also took on 3 new faces as shorecrew. With luck they will in due course prove to be an asset and progress onto the crew proper.

Deasy

I've been meaning to give more information about individual cremembers for quite some time now. So here goes........this is John Deas (Deasy) who joined the crew in 2004 and serves as an ILB crewmember and also a prospective ALB navigator. He is an incredibly competent and practical crewmember who has absolute confidence in his own ability to do everything. Not many of the crew know this, but he is following in the tradition of his Great Great Grandfather who was an oarsman on the 'William Earle', a previous Swanage Lifeboat. Without doubt (and as anyone who has ever been to the pub with him will testify) he is one of the planet's larger than life characters. He is best described as easy going and always up for a laugh. In the real world he 'works' for the RNLI as a Senior Design Engineer, mostly he designs launching and recovery equipement though fortunately for us this seems to occupy very little of his time. He lists his hobbies as wakeboarding, snowboarding and off-roading and can most often be found either on the water or tinkering with one of his engines (boat or landrover). He claims that his favourite food is a breakfast roll from the Pier Head café and in a way this sums him up; simple but probably going to hurt you in the long run.........

Incidentally, we have a busy week this week. Both boats will exercise on Wednesday and afterwards there will be a crew meeting. Then on Friday we have our Christmas party. This year it is going to be in the ship and will be a buffet with a live band. It promises to be great fun so watch out for the photos. Of course, nine of us will be carrying pagers just in case we get a shout. I will be duty crew for the ALB so at least I stand a chance of remembering enough to have something to write about on Saturday morning.

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.........

Take me to your leader

I am delighted to report that something of an epiphany has occurred in my photography career. After much effort and no small number of failures I have finally managed to take a photo of the Coxswain almost smiling. Goodness knows what he had to be so cheerful about?

The only other news that I have to report is that Jon Deas will be away this weekend (big sigh of relief from protective mothers in Swanage). He is travelling up to Snowdonia to take part in a 'Swift Water Rescue Technicians' course in support of his work as a rapid response team member. I imagine that this will be a pretty cold affair but probably great fun. He has promised photos on his return. Watch this space.

It's a set up!

Today was spent setting up the Prince Albert gardens for this evening and Saturdays evenings parties. It was an enjoyable day, sunny, hard work but comradely. Becky worked hard and managed to avoid looking stressed most of the time!Jon manged to avoid looking stressed out the whole time. The more I know him the more I realise that he is an example of laid-backness to aspire to.Our new Gazebos with their RNLI logos look great and a fabulous to work in.The kids were tremendous today. They joined in and really loved being with the boys (that includes you Becky and Jo).There was even time for an impromptu picnic.......altogether a great day. Well done everyone!

Toll Bar

On the evening of Friday 29 Jun 2007 an RRU (Rapid Reaction Unit) team deployed to Sheffield in support of the flooding near Toll Bar; in particular their task was to position themselves as a SRT (Swiftwater Rescue Team) and water capable QRF (Quick Reaction Force) should evacuation or rescue be required. An increasing threat to life was envisaged as heavy rain was forecast. The request to deploy came from the newly formed National Flood Support Unit that was set up in Worcester to coordinate the rescue assets available for national flood response. John Deas, a fellow Swanage Lifeboat Crew volunteer, is a member of this RRU team.Here is John looking wet and characteristically happy after a hard 24 hours work (something he is not entirely accustomed to!John is a Land Rover and Range Rover fan so it must have hurt seeing this?Generally speaking John tries to avoid getting into this close proximity with the Police!Still, I think he enjoyed himself, pity they made him catch the bus home......

From the report it sounds as if these guys did some valuable work and helped maintain safety, communications links and emergency transport in the area. Good work John!