The operation of the team’s drone section has been reviewed over the last couple of months. The drone pilots are certified by the Civil Aviation Authority and fly under strict operating rules that are laid down in our ‘Permission to fly Commercial Operations’ document.

It is a requirement that pilots maintain certain levels of competency, complete a specified minimum amount of flight time, and ensure operational safety. Recently, the drone section completed their first face to face training session for several months.

To reduce the possibility of the spread of Covid-19, …

In August 2020, the team worked with the YouTuber, Adam B and the long running children’s programme, Blue Peter.

Part of the CBBC’s programme was to introduce Adam to the role of becoming a Blue Peter presenter and following tradition, he was tasked with a very interesting challenge! His challenge was to complete a stretcher lower down from the top of the quarry face to imitate a crag rescue with the team stretcher. He did brilliantly!

The team have made a short video which can be seen on the …

Following a request from the local Medical Centre, both Buxton MRT and Kinder MRT were placed on standby to assist the transportation of elderly members of the community to the Medical Centre for their vaccines. At the time, heavy snow and icy conditions had been forecast and the support of the mountain rescue teams 4 wheel drive vehicles and casualty care skills was requested by the Medical Centre.

A short tweet by one of our social media team was picked up by Sky News, who arrived at our base the following morning to talk …

2020 – What a year this has been. Team Leader, Neil Carruthers summed it up as having “presented us with a number of challenges in terms of how we operated in a COVID secure manner, adding a considerable extra amount of work ensuring that we have cleaned and or quarantined all equipment which has been used when dealing with casualties.

The number of call outs is into three figures. When you also consider the team did not attend any incidents in the first half of the initial lock down, it is a good indicator of …

When the Peak District National Park turns into a winter wonderland it is the perfect time for team members in small groups to brush up on their winter skills.

Today was the third of four winter skills training sessions led by experienced team member and WMCI mountain instructor, Mark. It was a good start, there was snow! Plans had to be changed slightly to allow for a safer journey as the roads had become a little slippy earlier on in the day.

Members had a very enjoyable and …

Buxton Mountain Rescue Team are lucky to have close working relationships with many partner agencies and other voluntary rescue teams. This is particularly true of our close working relationship with Derbyshire Cave Rescue Organisation (DCRO). We do in fact share our Buxton Base with DCRO, where our emergency response vehicles are parked in adjacent garages at Buxton Fire and Rescue Centre, and we have worked closely on numerous callouts, training sessions, and even shared equipment and team members!

It doesn’t end there though. An agreement has just been put into place between the …

Buxton Mountain Rescue Team needs to replace one of its stretchers and is reaching out to the community to help fund the purchase. A stretcher recently failed a routine safety test which prevents us from using it on crag rescues or during helicopter winches. Failing a test certainly sounds alarming, and to us to have to replace it, it is; like many charities, our income is significantly down this year, so we’re asking you directly for help.

Stretchers are probably one of our most important pieces of equipment, and are used on almost every …

Over the next few months we’ll be introducing you to some of the really important people that keep Buxton Mountain Rescue Team going.

This is Sue.

Sue started as a Call Out Officer in 2002. Before smart phones, Call Out officers would need to telephone all the team members one by one with details of the call, before feeding back responses to the Team Leader.

Before joining the team herself, Sue supported husband Andy, an operational member, with butties and flasks for midnight searches. They both received …

Buxton Mountain Rescue Team members were delighted to be able to resume fund-raising activities and meeting our supporters face to face at our first “post lock-down lifting” fund raising event.

We were able to have a “socially distanced” chat with many people and would like to thank everyone who stopped by and contributed towards our fund raising day.

Your support is genuinely appreciated.

Continuing our catch up with team members who have completed their training and achieved full team membership, and the coveted “Red Jacket”, I caught up with Mike; here’s his story.….

I have been fortunate
enough to spend quite a lot of time walking, scrambling and climbing in the
different mountain regions in the British Isles and further afield including
South Africa, USA, Nepal, New Zealand and Europe. I’ve always found the hills
and mountains a great environment to recharge one’s batteries and get away from
the pressures of work and after 29 years I finally completed all the Munros …