We had another couple of rescues yesterday, a fallen climber on Cryn Las, now having responded to a couple of these in the past i know that they are often not pretty sights, and that the winch out is a little hairy to say the least. So as I boarded the helicopter i knew I was in for a potentially rough time. The first to MR troops out were winched to a lower ledge as a small over hang prevented the direct winch in. A nasty cut to the casualties bum meant that she was quickly scooped up whilst myself and another Mountain Rescue member sat on board the helicopter for what seemed like 20 minutes or more looking at the sheer face of cryn las.
It was so close I felt I could each out and touch the cliff. I was glad i couldn’t see the rotor blades as they would have been virtually scraping the cliff. The winchman later comment it was the scariest winch he had done in his career. It is certainly the scariest place I have been winch out to on previous rescues. When the casualty was finally winched on board I said hi, as i had previous worked with her. I tried to reassure her as the winchman started taking details, and we were quickly at the Ysbyty Gwynedd Landing Zone, before we were returned back to Llanberis.
The winchman said the immortal words ‘see you later’, and like a prophecy he was right, at 8.30 in the evening we responded to another casualty on the Llanberis Path, and this time we quickly got them onto the helicopter, as they managed to land on a flat piece of ground.
There was a bit of a debate about number of rescues back at base, and it would appear that we are well into three figures around 105 rescue for the year to date. Totally ridiculous, it works out at nearly three rescue a week, which is quite draining on a voluntary service, when each rescue takes at least 2 hours but more common from there commencement to the conclusion can take anything up to 12 hours, although sometimes more.
I have had days when I have been bumped from one job to another for several jobs, having gone on the hill for a quick job at 2pm, I have eventually got back after the pub has called last orders! Which is never a good thing.