Exercise time...

One of the things that we do on a regularish basis is to take part in training exercises designed to either test people, train people in new skills or to assess the competency of a team of people working together.

I used to be an associate member of a mountain rescue team and as such became used as a body during a part of an exercise. It was during one of these exercises that I was promised a winching into the coast guard helicopter taking part in the exercise once it was completed. over 100 members of Mountain Rescue were gathered at the briefing point for the exercise while myself, two other "victims" and our escort left early to get into position.

Arriving at the foot of the hill we decided to cross the river at the base of the hill before walking up on the slightly steeper path on the opposite side from the trail as it was easier to cross the river there than at the top. On reaching the top of the hill we scouted around for a suitable site to bed ourselves for a while and found two nice hollows to put our three casualties.

We sat down and proceeded to have a chat for about half an hour and admired the scenery at the same time while waiting for the sound of the helicopter to herald the approach of the search teams. It had been decided that for this exercise that the search teams were going to be positioned by the helicopter which is why we waited for the helicopter to come. We eventually heard the hum of the approaching helicopter and watched as it flew below us in the valley until it started rising to fly directly over us.

Luckily for us the helicopter crew did not give away our location as it would have been easy for them to find us with their infa-red camera. Unfortunately for me the position I had selected was not ideal although it had been selected for the right reasons. I had picked a hollow to lie down in so that it would take the teams time to find me but little did I realise that the hollow was also a channel for a breeze leading down into the valley.

I was stuck in this position for nearly 90 minutes before I heard a team walking up the path on the far side of the river. We could hear them talking as they debated the best way to cross the river that was blocking their way across. The inevitable happened and we heard a loud splash as some of the search team fell into the river. We were able to hear them laughing at their missfortune so we knew there was no need for us to reveal our location and go to their assistance.

They quickly extricated themselves from the cold water and dragged themselves back onto dry land and continued the search for us. Without realising it they almost walked right on top of me such was my hidden position. Luckily they saw me just in time to avoid giving me some genuine injuries to cope with.

They quickly got into action to assess our simulated injuries and recognised that I had a serious injury (fractured femur but should actually have been a fractured pelvis!). After a while of assessments by them of my "health" I advised them of the real simulated injury at which stage they changed tack and realised that my condition was more serious than initially expected.

Unfortunately for them my injuries were severe enough that I was loosing vast quantities of blood into my pelvic area (simulated of course!) and eventually I went into cardiac arrest and "died". Unfortunately this ment that I did not get my helicopter ride out and had to walk back down to the start point!