Search in the rain

Last night Portland Coastguard put the team through its paces in a search at Durlston.

Conditions were far from pleasant however we do have to go out in conditions far from warm and dry. The story was that a man had called his friend to say he was walking in the country park when he started to have chest pains - he failed to call again and his mobile was just ringing out.

Austen was in charge and we were joined for real by the Police as often we work closely on these searches. Two teams deployed and began searching using the thermal camera.

After about an hour the team found the male hidden and then played out the situation presented using first aid and then extraction from a difficult position in very difficult conditions.

Back to the station for hot drinks and a debrief. I am pleased to say the team did very well and proved they were competent to carry out the different searches the Coastguard carry out.

Our thanks to the staff at Portland, Allan, Ros, Malcolm (also known as Poppy the casualty) and John for assisting in this exercise.

Only one problem now......lots of drying out to do now !