RECCO onboard the SAR Helicopters in Scotland

Teams have R9 detectors as sometimes helcopters don't fly

Some great news for mountain rescue in Scotland. Recco R9 detectors will be carried as winter kit on Inverness and Prestwick coastguard flights. This is something I have wanted for years. Currently we have detectors with Glencoe, Lochaber, Killin, Tayside and Cairngorm MRT’s and Glencoe Ski Patrol. Very soon we hope to have one with Braemar MRT. This gives good coverage to the teams they are with, and neighbouring teams who they assist, and who often give back up to the teams venturing into avalanche terrain. There is no point in a rescuers rescuer being in bed miles away in a time critical event when a team has members buried. 

The purpose of the detectors on the aircraft is to provide the R9 as an additional resource to equipped teams, but also very importantly give teams in remote areas where in a large proportion of the time a helicopter will be the only meaningful way to get the rescuers to an avalanche scene inside a survival window. And also as a victim location tool out with that critical time window. We should never forget Robert Burnett in the Southern Cairngorms who was dug out after 22 hours burial. Found using bamboo probes by Braemar rescuers and Invercauld estate workers, this remains a salient lesson to never give up on the buried victim.

Its been a long haul over the last 15 years getting Recco coverage in Scotland as a Recco trainer. Unlike the Alpine nations we have sadly bought into the myth that in Scotland its always too late or its trauma that has killed the victims. When there is no data to support this myth and anecdotal evidence that with earlier recovery by being searchable there would be more survivors. The ratio of trauma to triple H syndrome or where trauma is a contributing factor is in my view the same as any other country with unpredictable maritime snowpacks. A previous blog post explores this. 

https://crankitupgear.blogspot.com/2016/12/triple-h-or-trauma-in-scottish.html

A huge thanks to my colleague Nigel Harling Helicopter SAR liaison for MRC England for getting the idea of equipping the flights achieved. He has worked tirelessly with the coastguard for the last 6 months as Recco UK SAR helicopter rep. A special thanks also to Kirsty Pallas for incorporating Recco familiarity to students on the SMR avalanche course. And of course a big thanks to Recco who have supplied detectors on long term free contracts. A tremendous company to work for, and dedicated to avalanche safety and the saving of lives. 

Coastguard SAR in Action

New ideas and technology are slow to be taken up in Scotland, despite ICAR and other organisations regarding Recco as a standard search tool in avalanches. It reminds me very much of when I had a defib on trial here at Glencoe for the team in 1992, on loan after a person I was treating as first on scene arrested, and I did not have one. I had the piss taken about getting myself electrocuted when I had the big Marquette defib and later a Laerdal Heartstart. They were heavy and noisy monophasic defibs. No one was laughing when one of my colleagues Billy Muir delivered twenty shocks to a lady and got ROSP. I was on the ventilation BVM via ET tube that wild night. Who would dream of turning up at a cardiac event these days without a defib. Billy also saved someone life fairly recently working for Rabbie tours on a distillery visit where a tourist arrested and he used the distilleries defib to successfully resuscitate them. Few folk can say they definitively saved someones life. I hope they give him drams for life! 

Handheld R9 deployed in St Anton Austria