New Base Update
While the base is now in use the kitchen, two of the toilets and other internal finishings are still to be done as well as groundworks at the back of the base.
Activities
To maintain skills and team proficiency team members commit a considerable amount of their time to training. Each month involves an evening training session and normally a Sunday exercise and at least once a year there is a night exercise. In addition, members can attend a monthly casualty care session.
On the Sunday exercise of March, the team was in the Lothian area. In the morning 3 groups searched for 3 overdue runners and each group had a casualty to assess, give first aid to, and evacuate.
In the afternoon, a couple of groups alternated on two different training activities. One group practiced the fitting of a traction splint on a casualty who had sustained a mid-femur break. This injury results in a shortening of the leg, much internal blood loss and a great deal of pain. With pain relief administered, the leg can be straightened, a traction splint fitted, and the leg stretched to bring it back into a normal position resulting in great pain relief and reduced risk of further damage to the femur. The traction splint is only one of many bits of kit that team members must become familiar with. Another is assembling a stretcher, wheel frame, wheel and stretcher handles.
Evacuating a casualty on a stretcher can be made less arduous by use of a wheel, or in this case a double wheel.
The other group were taken by a team member who has a SARDA trained dog, (Search and Rescue Dog Association), to explain how search dogs work and give a demonstration of the dog and handler operating on a search. The dogs are air scenting and search for human scent particles. The BSARU presently has two team members training as SARDA dog handlers. Training a dog requires a great deal of commitment as it involves attending SARDA training and assessments and constant working with the dog. Once SARDA training is completed the duo may be called out to incidents around Scotland.
