The exercise today was to locate a casualty “somewhere near the top of Foel Fenlli”.  Lisa (one of our team members) had “unfortunately fallen off the path” and had phoned in for assistance with some general information about her location.

The team deployed on the short walk to the summit and a quick trip around the top found Lisa in one of the ditches that ring the summit and form the defences of the historic Iron Age fort.  She had a “lower leg injury” and mysteriously went unconscious, just to test the Casualty Carer a bit more!

Equipment was brought up to deal with the stabilisation of the casualty and carry out an evacuation.  We asked for a helicopter, as an unconscious casualty is always treated as a priority case.  But of course, for the purposes of the exercise, none was available.  So it was down to us to carry Lisa off.

We were helped by the snowy conditions that allowed for the stretcher to be sledged for most of the way, before the snow ran out and we completed a normal “carry” with 8 persons around the stretcher at a time.

Two NEWSAR Search Managers worked in conjunction with North Wales Police Officers to analyse the information surrounding this case.  The NEWSAR Search Managers then identified areas appropriate for team members to search.

24 team members met in Wrexham before deploying in several parties to search rural areas, with challenging steep wooded terrain as well as some river bank locations.

NEWSAR also called on the assistance of SARDA Wales trailing dogs.

The information gained during these searches was useful to NWP in their ongoing enquires regarding this missing person.

The team was stood down at approx. midnight, with the SARDA dogs returning at 01:30.

Team members then packed up equipment and headed for home to catch a few hours sleep before many of them went off to work this morning.

NEWSAR remains available to carry out further work if appropriate search areas are identified.

We met Michael’s mum, Ann and his aunt, Peggy who had arranged the bake sale as a way of saying thank you for the time the three charities had given over the past month.

NEWSAR would like to say thanks to Ann, Peggy and the staff and students of Glyndwr for the generous donation.

Picture: Andrew Price, Glyndwr University

Please consider supporting her magnificent effort with a sponsorship pledge.

Her online giving page can be found here:-

http://www.charitygiving.co.uk/joanedwards

Good luck with your preparations Joan and thank you from everyone at NEWSAR!