On Tuesday the team were requested to attend 4 separate incidents within 3 hours. I’ve not checked, but that certainly feels like a new record.
The first call was received at 14:10 reporting a child with leg and facial injuries on the edge path to the north of Sandy Heys. Two hill parties were deployed: Kinder 1 as a fast party and Kinder 2 with a stretcher package in case it was required.
At 14:55 a second request was received from the ambulance service for assistance with a female who had sustained a knee injury in a rural area near Alderley Edge. Kinder 1 had not yet reached the casualty on callout 1, so it was not known at that time what resources would be required. Thankfully we are able to request support from the wider search and rescue community, so we made contact with Cheshire Search and Rescue, who agreed to help out on our behalf.
Whilst still on the phone organising callout 2, a third request was received from the ambulance service at 15:07 for a male who had fallen and sustained a head injury close to the summit of White Nancy, near Bollington. The situation with callout 1 was still unknown, so we called on our mountain rescue colleagues this time, and asked the controller to request assistance from Buxton Mountain Rescue Team with callout 3.
When Kinder 1 reached the casualty on callout 1 our remote rescue medical technicians (RRMTs) made an assessment and determined that, after administering some treatment, the child would be able to walk off Kinder back to the team vehicle. Around the same time we heard that Cheshire SAR had completed a stretcher carry on callout 2, and Buxton MRT had been stood down because the casualty on callout 3 had self-rescued. So far so good…
Then, at 16:45, we received a further message from the controller that a male had injured his ankle near Kinder Low and was unable to continue. Now that we had a better idea of how callout 1 was going to play out, we decided we had enough resources already at base to deploy Kinder 3 direct to callout 4. We set up a second control room in our base, and ran callouts 1 and 4 concurrently. We were going to need more numbers to complete a stretcher carry, so we sent a further callout message. Luckily, more team members had been able to release themselves from work by this point, and we were able to deploy Kinder 4 with a stretcher package to support Kinder 3.
Casualty 4 was assessed and splinted by our RRMTs, and stretchered back to the top of Edale Cross. All that remained then were some vehicle logistics to get everybody off the hill and back to where they needed to be.
Our thanks to everyone who assisted us during a very busy few hours: Cheshire SAR, Buxton MRT, the regional controller, and of course all our team members. Its great to see the search and rescue community pulling together to help those in need.
Kinder Mountain Rescue Team is staffed by volunteers, who give their time free of charge, and it is funded entirely by public donations.
https://www.justgiving.com/kmrt
– Time: 14:10
– Type: Mountain Incidents, Ambulance Assists
– Location: Across our operational area!
– Team members: 32
– Duration: 6 hours
– Volunteer hours on this incident: 126 hours – Total callout hours in 2026: 2108 hours
