My pager went off yesterday, a male fallen on Snowdon, so i headed to Nant Peris (My van hasn’t passed its MOT so I had to hitch). The RAF were quickly tasked and were in and out very quickly with the casualty, in the mean time I went from the Nant Peris LZ waiting just incase they needed some ropes and stuff. We were then tasked to walk up, as the Helicopter was at Ysybty Gwynedd, and the casualties wife was still on the hill.
I can’t imagine how the woman felt alone and not knowing what was happening to her husband. Later that day I visited a friend who had just returned from New Zealand where she fell off a cliff on a mountain bike. Her husband had to drive from south to north island before finding out the extent of her injuries. It was a lonely drive, so how this mans wife felt must have been terrible.
As such we were aiming to reach her and walk her off, or at least keep her company until the helicopter returned. As it was the helicopter beat us to it, and got her quickly to YG. Unfortunately the man had already been pronounced dead, and another small team were dispatched to carry out the fatal incident protocol, to collect evidence for the coroners inquiry.
We turn round, and got a lift back down from the crusher to base, and I managed to get a lift back from some friends passing Llanberis. Chatting with another member of the team it would seem like we have had around 10 fatalities in and around snowdon this year, and around 175 callouts. That is double our normal number of incidents.
Later on that day, my friend who had the nasty accident in New Zealand told me that her last thought as she went over the cliff was, well I have looked forward to this trip for ages, and have wanted to do it for ages, if now is my time, then so be it. My heart goes out to the man’s wife, family and friends. This was one of those true accidents by the sounds of it, a tragic loss so close to christmas.
A BBC report can be found here.