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Mountain Rescue Team Avalanche Safety Equipment

by North of Tyne Mountain Rescue Team in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England, United Kingdom

We did it
On 7th July 2021 we successfully raised £4,763 ( + est. £463.75 Gift Aid ) with 156 supporters in 21 days

Buy 12 sets of avalanche rescue equipment to keep our team members safe and assist in finding and rescuing people trapped in avalanches.

by North of Tyne Mountain Rescue Team in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England, United Kingdom

 New stretch target


Who are we?

North of Tyne Mountain Rescue Team is a charity run purely by skilled and professional volunteers providing search and rescue services for people in difficulty, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

  • We cover the entire Northumbria Police area and search for, treat and evacuate people who are missing, ill or injured in hard-to-reach and remote areas.
  • We search for missing vulnerable people on behalf of Northumbria Police in parks, wooded and overgrown areas in North East cities, towns and villages.
  • We assist the emergency services with specialist evacuations, incidents and resilience during adverse weather conditions and at any other time they need additional support.
  • We search for and rescue people of all ages and backgrounds to get them to safety.
  • We educate the public in being safe outdoors and talk to young people about how to enjoy the outdoors whilst remaining safe.

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Why are we asking for your help?

Covid has had a huge impact on our ability to raise funds from our usual sources such as collection boxes in retail and hospitality outlets, operating outdoor challenge events, and providing safety cover at other organisations’ events.

We need money to provide this search and rescue cover and our volunteer members have been working hard to secure fundraising in other areas just to allow the team to remain operational, covering the essential costs of running the vehicles, fuel and insurance. 

This reduction in our income has meant that we have been unable to renew or purchase other safety equipment that would normally have taken priority.


What do we need to buy?

We need to raise enough to purchase 12 sets of avalanche rescue equipment to keep our team members safe, and assist in finding and rescuing people trapped in avalanches. 

A set costs £300 and includes an electronic transceiver device, a snow shovel and a snow probe. 

The transceiver is worn by a team member so that they can be detected if they are buried by an avalanche whilst undertaking a search or rescue in the snowy hills of Northumberland (or when we train in Scotland). It will also detect a member of the public if they are wearing a transceiver. Once the transceivers have been used to mark the surface location of the casualty, we then use the probes to pinpoint where they are beneath the snow and use the shovels to rapidly dig them out.

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There are several areas in Northumberland where our team attend callouts where an avalanche is a serious risk. 90 per cent of avalanche victims are themselves the trigger that causes the avalanche and we therefore need to reduce the personal risks to our volunteer team members and also increase the chances of finding a person who could have been caught in an avalanche.

Without this life-saving kit, we can’t search for or rescue people in these hazardous conditions.

This equipment is a one-off purchase, requiring no other funding. There are no running or maintenance costs and we expect the transceivers to be in use for approximately 10 years, the probes and shovels should last longer.

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What if we reach our fundraising target?

Our Crowdfunder campaign is all about asking for the public's support in kitting us out with avalanche rescue equipment. If we are fortunate enough to reach our target then we would use any grant funding that the Calor Rural Community Fund decides to award us as follows.

We have for many years operated with a small number of comprehensive first aid kits, that are issued to team search groups when one of our vehicles arrives at the rendezvous point for an incident This may be a search for a missing person, or the treatment and extraction of an injured individual. Missing people invariably have medical issues by the time we find them and will need some form of treatment. 

We have now researched the benefits of issuing individual kits to our "Casualty Carers", as often locally based team members will arrive on scene well ahead of our vehicles, and this will mean they can be deployed more quickly with potentially life saving equipment. Speed is essential in outdoor first aid where the injury combined with the elements is a potent mix. 

Each first aid kit will contain essential items to commence initial treatments, including a drugs pouch, and costs c£130. The containers themselves, shown below, will last indefinitely, and the medical contents (which we put together ourselves for our specific purposes and environments - rather than standard ready made kits) are replaced either when used or when certain items reach expiry dates. Ultimately we would like to issue these to all 22 of our certified Casualty Carers.

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What are the benefits for the local community?

Besides being on call 24 hours a day/365 days a year, North of Tyne Mountain Rescue Team are active in the community, visiting schools, Scout and Guide Groups, and Cadets for educational talks as well as attending walking, running and mountain biking events all across the region providing safety cover. 

With the restrictions that have been in place since last year, many of these visits have not been possible. As we come out of lockdown our volunteer members have had to adapt to the increase in attending a high number of callouts as well as committing to additional fundraising duties, all on a voluntary basis. 

If we are able to secure funding from the Calor Rural Community Fund, it will go a long way to helping us meet our financial needs, allowing members to resume other duties such as educational visits and community events that are always so positively received. 

PLEASE SUPPORT OUR PROJECT BY LIKING AND DONATING IF YOU ARE ABLE TO, IT WILL BE GREATLY APPRECIATED BY ALL OUR VOLUNTEER TEAM MEMBERS!

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