DCRO practise

The Derbyshire Cave Rescue Organisation hold practise meets throughout the year to train up new members and hone the skills of the experienced team. They are able to reach anywhere that dry cavers go and a lot of their callouts are to surface rescues unrelated to caving. Unfortunately they do not include cave diving in their training and are therefore unable to dive through sumps to aid cavers beyond; either those trapped by floods or a diver who has sustained injury beyond a sump. For beyond sump rescues the Derbyshire section of the Cave Diving Group has a callout list. These divers sometimes get to attend rescue practises and the DCRO sometimes organises practises where the main focus is on a diving based rescue. Today was one of those rescue practises.

The meeting point for the team was the Peak Cavern car park at 9 am. A closed road made a mockery of that and the team made it underground at about 10:30 am after changing and being briefed. The DCRO plan was very carefully worked out with small teams tasked to travel to specific locations and test communications equipment. One team was to test signal strength at various points on the surface above the cave for use in the future in the event of a callout to Peak Cavern. Two other teams were to test signal strength at key junctions and avens in the cave by talking to the surface team and each other. The diving team were to move to an aven part of the way through Buxton Water Sump where one member would pretend to be injured and the other two would set up communications with dive base and a doctor. The dive team were then to move the casualty to the far end of the sump where they would be met by a DCRO stretcher party who were to move the diver up stream and up Surprise View pitch. One of the dive team was also tasked with testing a full face mask on loan from the manufacturer to see if it was suitable for cave diving.

The DCRO element of the team worked to plan. The equipment for the day was carried into the various parts of the cave. The signal strength information was collected. The stretcher party were in position at the far end of the sump at the right time. The divers kitted up and started out into the sump under the watchful eye of the DCRO video and stills team. Once out of sight the divers want for a bit of a swim, eventually ending up in the target location in not quite the right order. Is this the first time a rescuer has arrived before the casualty? The diving team then set about the communications equipment before setting it up properly. Two types were used: A Heyphone (an inductive loop system) (please don’t ask) and a single wire system. The Heyphone proved a little inconsistent in use with big differences in signal strength between the different teams. The single wire system proved very good. After the coms testing two of the divers went to the end of the sump, the casualty and the diver testing the mask. Is this the first time a diver has swum out with a broken leg? The mask worked well enough for the test diver to survive through a corkscrew manoeuvre through a boulder choke. Both divers were provide with coffee, hot and sweet, before the rescuing diver went back to the aven to help the third diver remove the communications equipment.

The stretcher work part of the practise started once the coffee had been drunk. Again the diver was slightly off plan. Divers do not wear sit harnesses which are required by the DCRO for moving a casualty in a stretcher up a pitch. One of the DCRO team, equipped with a sit harness, was strapped into the stretcher in place of the diver with the broken leg. Seven people were involved with carrying the stretcher upstream through the walking easy passage, six carrying and one checking the route ahead and helping out when needed. After what seemed a long time the six DCRO members and the diver with the broken leg got the stretcher to the foot of the Surprise view pitch. Ropes had been rigged before for the lift and all but two of the party went to the top of the pitch to provide pulling power. The stretcher was lifted up using one lift line and a safety before it was manhandled along the rift at the pitch head. With that achieved the practise was complete and the DCRO undid the person in the stretcher and want the dry way out, the diver exited via the silt clouded water of the sump. The party met up again the other side of the sump and exited the show cave together. The divers then went down to the resurgence pool below the entrance to carryout further tests on the full face mask before heading back to the car park. Once everybody had changed there was a team debrief and ice cream eating session.