Great article, only thing I'd add is a slight change to the call for help - if you need them please phone 999 and ask for Police THEN Mountain Rescue.
Alternatively, text REGISTER to 999 and you can even text the emergency services if you don't have great signal.
Great article, only thing I'd add is a slight change to the call for help
It was me that wrote it, that's me in the red waterproof / silver helmet in the cover pic (although actually when you read that online version, it doesn't quite flow right; in the magazine there was a sort of sub-section within it outlining some other details but that divide and the continuity of my / Craig's writing doesn't carry through into the online version). Also it obviously went through STW's sub-editors who tidied it up for ease of reading / space etc so maybe not every last detail is captured in there.
I did 999 > Police > Mtn Rescue. When we got put through to them they asked me to describe the location, just to make sure that I'd read them the grid ref numbers correctly. Obviously this was in the days before smartphones and I'm not even sure the 999 text register service existed back then. Still fairly early days of mobiles, I'll probably have had some sort of brick Nokia thing. I remember I had a GPS device, one of the early ones that used AA batteries and had a small finger cursor button to scroll the map; it was before the days of cycling-specific ones. That's where I got the grid ref from.
21, nearly 22 years ago that incident! Wow.
Weird how you ended up with the same injury on the Nut House descent in Verbier not long after when you collided with a tree stump and used your hip for a brake. I still remember Phil asking if he could have your sandwiches as we waited for the helicopter to lift you to hospital. You were trying not to laugh. How the pilot landed in such a tiny clearing still amazes me.
I remember this article at the time. Well worth a revisit. I've always been that bit more cautious on that section of trail ever since I read it the first time around.
Cheers
Sanny
'They pull off less mountain bikers than they would expect to’..................that is quite the unexpected service from the Keswick MRT! 🤣
I read the words about the helicopter estimating 45mins to arrive, then pitching up dead on schedule. And landing-on a tiny patch of ground. It sort of went quite dusty in here, all of a sudden. Those big yellow taxis and their crews were properly impressive, always enjoyed seeing them out and about in the hills, even if they were actually on a shout rather than a training trip.
Pre-hack website has a similar article from me about the day my mate (also Matt) stopped on Helvellyn by using his face into the ground at 20mph...
I'm experienced outdoors and know how long MRT can take to get to you. So when I left Matt and other riding buddies to go call Police/MRT and being told by riding buddies he would not make the hour, I actually said my goodbyes.
As I finished with MRT call to give Grid Reference I could actually hear sirens. As I hung up the (payphone) rang again - this time with sound of a Sea King down the phone.
It turned out that someone had called MRT threatening suicide from a cliff above Patterdale, so the whole team had gathered. In addition the usual yellow bird from Lossie was being temporarily replaced by a green bird - that was flying past Penrith on the way up. The pilot called me on a new fangled mobile phone to get on site weather. 20 mins after the accident a MRT doctor intubated him, 15 mins later he was placed into a hovering on one wheel Sea King and about an hour after accident he was in Carlisle A&E...
Even then we were all interviewed as it was suggested he would not survive....
18 months later we went back with BBC - thanked the MRT in person, revisited the spot of the accident with BBC '999' crew in tow, and agreed that my pal was running London marathon to raise money for the team. He did run it, and we returned one more time to give them £28k for team funds...
Matt still rides and is back to pretty much normal, but I'm glad it took him a few weeks to remember that the trip was my idea and invite...
That article had better not be 20 years ago, I remember reading it the first time around, and I was over 30 when I found this place....
Great read, i have so much respect for the Mountain Rescue teams and what they deal with. I follow a fair few teams on facebook and when you see the amount of calls they get to save people who have gone out completely unprepared up mountains in t shirts, shorts and flipflops at dusk its makes me wonder how they keep such an amazing attitude.
Nice little reminder, so easy for things to go wrong. And at this time of year, so easy to get cold just waiting around