The Full Team Page

So what happens on a full team page?

Well rather than the two IRT (Initial Response Team) Members being paged, the full 12 person team is called. The pagers give a very loud audible tone or beep, followed by a voiceover from Portland Ops, Room. One minute you are asleep the next there is a loud beep and a man (who may as well be standing by your bed) saying “Full Team Page- Swanage!”, which is a little disconcerting at in the early hours. Everyone makes a quick telephone call to the ops room to get brief details and the rendezvous point for the team, normally the Coastguard Station. Kiss goodbye for the loved ones and out the door,

The first person at the station unlocks, sorts out the alarms, opens the vehicle bay doors and gets the truck out. He then makes a call to the ops room to say he is on station and starts taking down the full details of the shout – locations, type of incident, numbers of person, weather conditions. As the team turn up at the station they start kitting up with their personal protection equipment (PPE) helmets, coats, boots, radios, etc etc… The Coastguard Rescue Vehicle is then equipped with any extra equipment that we made need depending on the job. This could be torches, search bags, the cliff trailer. Meanwhile calls are being made to team members who may not have heard there pagers; if we can’t raise enough a call is made for backup in the form of the St Albans Team.

The officer in charge – normally Ian or Austen then give a quick briefing of the tasking and the risks and we set off. All in all we can be out of the station in around 8-10 minutes (on a good day) from the actual pager being activated. On the journey cliff harness are put on, torches checked, and more calls made both radio and mobile to ensure the team all meet at the same point.

On scene, a sit-rep call to ops room, another quick briefing and we start work proper.