The training scenario involved a casualty injured at the bottom of a headland at Newquay, with Coastguard Rescue Officers helping to get doctors and paramedics safely down to the scene.
HM Coastguard and the Cornwall Air Ambulance often work closely together during serious accidents around the coastline.
If the helicopter cannot access the area near the patient, such as some spots below cliffs, members of its crew may need to be lowered down to provide emergency medical treatment.
In the exercise, Newquay CRT helped the Critical Care Paramedics and Doctors descend over the cliff edge one by one to where a dummy had been placed.
Rob Farr, HM Coastguard Senior Coastal Operations Officer, said: “Throughout the summer we have many people on the cliffs and unfortunately, on occasion, people do get into difficulty, either cut off at the bottom or having fallen from height down the cliff.
“For the Critical Care Team, it’s getting them used to the rope skills and being placed into our system, so they can be lowered to the casualty to then deliver care.
“It’s good to be able to practice as a multiagency team, it gets people to meet other agencies, and once they’ve experienced the systems that we have, and we understand the capabilities that you have, on a real incident it makes the job a whole lot easier.”
Dan Bawden, Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) Consultant at Cornwall Air Ambulance, added: “It’s important that our team know how to work with HM Coastguard, how to work safely together and how their equipment works.”
- In an emergency by the coast, call 999 and ask for the Coastguard
Main photo credit: Cornwall Air Ambulance Trust
