The Central Beacons Mountain Rescue Team is calling for volunteers to help raise funds as operational team members are kept busy responding to incidents with six incidents in the last three days.
Following their regular training night on Thursday night in Dowlais, Merthyr Tydfil, the team was called to assist South Wales Police in searching for a missing woman in Cwm Garw, just north of Bridgend in the early hours of Friday morning. Alerted at around 4am, the Central Beacons team responded to assist the Western Beacons team, both teams were stood down around 6am when police officers found the woman. Most of the team members left the incident to attend their normal day jobs, but later the same day team members were again interrupted with a request from South Wales Police to aid in the rescue of a sheep stuck on rocks above Blaenrhondda. This meant that a number of team members had to leave a pre-arranged fundraising event in Tesco, Merthyr Tydfil. The team dispatched a crew in a Mountain Rescue ambulance to rescue the sheep, spending 3 hours of their Friday night in ever deteriorating weather conditions, coaxing the sheep down.
Although the team is a 999 emergency service, the service is run entirely by volunteers and funded by contributions from the public. Team members intersperse their rescue operations with fundraising events to raise money to ensure that the communities of south Wales continue to benefit from this vital service.
Friday's fundraising was due to continue on Saturday but the team were again alerted at around 2.30pm to a collapsed person in Gospel Pass near Hay on Wye. The team were paged out to assist Longtown and Brecon MRT’s and were able to respond quickly with a full crew, a Landrover Ambulance and the incident control vehicle. However, whilst en- route to the incident, we were diverted to a second incident at Capel Y Ffin near Llanthony. Brecon Mountain Rescue Team dealt with incident in Gospel Pass and the Central Beacons team re-routed to Capel Y Ffin to assist the Longtown team with a person with a leg injury. An RAF rescue helicopter from RAF Chivenor had been requested and responded to the collapsed person in Gospel Pass, who they conveyed to Neville Hall Hospital in Abergavenny for treatment. The RAF then returned to pick up the person with a leg injury to take them to Neville Hall for treatment as well. However, hopes of a rest for the Central Beacons team were dashed as South Wales police called the team requesting assistance for a search for a missing person in Tylorstown, Rhondda. The team was stood down en route to the search and the volunteer crews made their way home.
On Sunday the team was hosting a visit from a group of children with Special Needs from Caerphilly Children's Center. The event was still fully staffed despite the hectic weekend. The event was well under way in Morlais Quarries when the team were contact again by South Wales police asking for assistance with an injured cyclist in the Afan Argoed Country Park in the Afan Valley. A crew was immediately dispatched to the incident while the rest of the team continued to engage the children in their activities.
The team is currently inviting members of the communities in South Wales to help them with fundraising efforts. Central Beacons team costs almost £30,000 every year just to run. All the volunteers that perform the rescues also spend their weekends running fundraising events to keep their team running. "The last few days' incidents shows perfectly the diversity of the incidents that we respond to: missing people from the communities around us, injured hillwalkers and even animals stuck on cliffs." said Huw Jones, Team Leader. The team is trying to recruit a group of people to help with fundraising who don't respond to incidents, taking some of the pressures off existing team members. Huw Jones pointed out that the team was extremely busy already with the school holidays yet to start and urged members of the public to take care when out and about.
The Central Beacons Mountain Rescue team is a 999 emergency service run entirely by volunteers and funded by donations from the public. Based in Merthyr Tydfil, the team has been operating since 1963 and with their 40 operational members currently responds to around 120 incidents a year. For more information, please contact Huw Jones, Team Leader on 07831295285 or at huw.jones@cbmrt.org.uk; Peter Howells, Incident Controller on 07836382029 or peter.howells@cbmrt.org.uk; or visit the website at http://www.cbmrt.org.uk.