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THE DUBLIN and Wicklow Mountain Rescue team and the Glen of Imaal Red Cross Mountain Rescue Team today became the first rescue teams to carry out one hundred operations in Ireland in one calendar year.
The 100th callout was for a missing walker who became disorientated in deteriorating weather conditions and poor light last night. The man was located using special technology on steep ground. He was treated at the scene for mild hypothermia and taken to safety.
This number represents a near doubling of the amount of call outs seen in 2012, over 30 calls more than the previous busiest year and over four thousand voluntary man-hours.
The teams have seen incidents ranging from vehicles and their passengers caught in snow and ice conditions to lost walkers in poor weather conditions and injured mountain bikers as well as assisting other rescue teams. Some 192 people have been assisted and there have been six fatalities.
Today Mountain Rescue said in a statement that teams were exposed to varied medical scenarios including lower leg injuries, cardiac arrests, serious spinal injuries and self harm.
Commenting on the landmark number of callouts, Alan Cronin, Chairman of Dublin and Wicklow Mountain Rescue Team, said:
Faced with decreasing income and rising operating costs, we have had to ask more from our members as the number of call outs reached record numbers. Aside from the financial strain on the team, members are also being asked to invest more of their own time and money into providing what has become a front line professional emergency service.
Figures from the teams show that January and February were the busiest months for callouts, with Sunday being the busiest day of the week.
All images provided by Mountain Rescue.
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Fantastic work. Unpaid and voluntary.
I’m doing mountain skills 2 in the spring after already completing ms1 earlier this year. I hope to become a mountain leader in future and fingers crossed progress to mountain rescue.
Great! Who are you doing your training with? Sounds great fun and worthwhile too.
I joined a local mountaineering/ outdoor club, they subsidise the courses/training. They go on by-weekly hill walks in Tipperary, Galway, Mayo and Kerry.
They also do rock climbing and cycling.
I did my first mountain skills course with Tim orr website torr.ie and I will be doing mountain skills 2 with him as well.
Well done to voulenter peoples they make me happy when they save the lives.I love Ireland because lots of good peoples here I am proud also I am Irish citizen now.
Anyone involved in volunteering in such things should be given rebates on equipment /training etc and extra tax credits for the service & savings they provide/save us all. Great job they unquestionably do.
Hat tip to the hundreds of life saving volunteers who risk their own lives to save others. Thanks for finding, rescuing and retrieving the many thousands each year.
It does make you wonder of the skill and fitness level of some people who go hill walking, the weather was fine yesterday but given that it is cold you need to have decent kit including a bivibag/tarp in case you need to make an emergency shelter. There are plenty of tracks is someone just wants to go out for a weekend walk
Agreed. People get themselves into stupid situations and should be charged for call out. The helicopter aint free after all.
But good service the mountain rescue provide for fallen walkers. But people who get there cars stuck up there deserve it. Id imagine 90% of their calls are that. Id not be keen to give up my warm fire to walk down an ungrateful idiot who got stuck with car nit willing to leave it. Thanks but no thanks
I started doing a lot of hill walking in Wicklow myself but short of a broken leg I’d hate to have to call these guys out because of bad planning on my part. My guess is their call out was because the lad “forgot” that it gets dark early. Anyone hiking should be a their high point by 1pm and should be in the lower valleys by 3 which gives you another hour or 2 to get back to car/bus
And in respect to Wicklow Ive yet to hike anywhere where there isnt at least one reasonably sloping side so I do find it peculiar
Stupid ill equipped idiots please take note. By equipped I include common sense in there.
They have AIRWOLF!?!
Donegal Mountain Rescue came to our aid one time when kids were only babies and we were out for a run, up Barnes Gap on New Years Day 2006 when we went in to a shuck and no amount of hanging off the back of the landy was getting any grip on the road. I used the last of my phone battery to give directions to my friend in Mountain Rescue, ar*ehole of the mountains and it just getting dark when they appear and pulled us out in minutes. We were so lucky as I hadn’t even a drink of juice in the jeep, stupid but we weren’t going off roading just out for a run. These guys do a lot more than the big publicised stories with helicopters etc… Thank you x
I was one of the lads who hauled you out of the ditch that day. At least I got out of the new year’s day swim.
Stupid people at it again. I grew up not far from those mountains, and one thing we were always told was to respect the range and you will never be at its mercy.
They do a great job with little recognition in resource terms. I never hear stories of those rescued raising money for them as people often do for cancer wards that have cared for them. Perhaps there are and I don’t hear about them?
I luv it dat i no its safe 2 walk up de montins and der will alwayz be sumone der to collect me when i get tyred
Darwin Awardsto people who go mounntin walking with out being prepared
Busy night.
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