The Nine Edges
Team Casualty Care Training
Mountain Rescue medical training is designed to give MR personnel the ability and confidence to manage all the medical issues at a casualty site. Most team members hold the National Mountain Rescue Council Casualty Care Certificate awarded after successful completion of an advanced and specialised training course culminating in a theoretical and practical examination.
The training allows Mountain Rescue personnel to undertake procedures that are not normally covered in basic first aid courses, administering medical gases, drugs and moving casualties with spinal injuries for example.
The training aims to highlight the dilemmas that occur between "textbook" casualty care and practical mountain rescue.
All the training is based around the ATLS (Advanced Trauma Life Support) principles that are used in all hospital A/E departments and by paramedics. We regularly work with personnel from these areas and often deal with severely injured casualties, so it is important that we are compatible.
A First Aid course is run annually and there is ongoing medical training during most team exercises.
The Mountain Rescue Casualty Care Certificate has to be renewed by examination every three years.