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Tag: Search and rescue in ‘UK’

  • Weather warnings and ‘UK’ takes leave of its senses, requiring SAR (Search & Rescue)

    In the last few months with several named storms (big storms meaning huge waves, 80 mph winds, heavy rain, ice, etc.) and the Christmas period and the New Year period there have been quite a few deaths of humans who inexplicably went into the sea. The media does not report it as a suicide or a crime of neglect of a minor with one of them being under 16, but as a massive hype of drama and action, and in one event in Devon, a man rescued by a passer by was given much air time by Radio 4, high as a kite on the events and how he was rescued, yet two other people at the location were missing and found drowned, but the Beeb reported it from the high as a kite drama.

    After Storm Goretti was announced, severe weather warnings, damage to property and infrastructure expected, the mountain rescue teams in Cumbria’s Lakes & Peaks, and mountain rescue in Scottish high-land locations were called out to humans stuck and injured in difficult terrain – after a severe weather warning had been publicised so well that no one would be in doubt of what was coming. And it did come. And in stormy weather over those last few months, the RNLI and local rescue services were called out to pull humans out of heavy seas – after a severe weather warning had been issued.

    On the gov.uk website under Search and Rescue in ‘the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’ the following Introduction is made (and the below is cut and pasted from the gov.uk website and this writer is not clever enough with the tech to put it into italics):

    “Search and rescue (SAR) is variously defined across organisations and authorities but in essence it is an activity, normally co-ordinated by a rescue co-ordination authority, where available personnel and assets are used to locate persons in distress, potential distress or who are missing, and recover them to a place of safety, providing for their initial medical care and other immediate needs as necessary.

    The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) provides a comprehensive search and rescue service for persons reported to be in distress or missing on land, on the sea or in the air. The integrated organisation of search and rescue co-ordinators and search and rescue assets, using a comprehensive communications infrastructure, provides a well-developed search and rescue model which also supports the UK’s wider civil contingency arrangements.”

    The gov.uk website lists the various International Treaties under which SAR services in the ‘UK’ must rescue those in difficulty:

    Obligations

    The UK organisation for civil maritime and civil aeronautical search and rescue is derived from the UK Government’s adherence to the following international Conventions:

    There are no International Conventions governing land search and rescue. However, legislation governing Police activity places an obligation on Police Services to protect life and property, and the provision of land SAR services derives from the legislation set out below.

    Legislation

    There may be additional legislation or obligations that impact search and rescue in the UK.

    Scope of search and rescue in the UK

    The UK responsibility for maritime and aeronautical SAR likes within the UK Search and Rescue Region (UKSRR) which covers approx. 1.5 million square miles, Annex A. Inland SAR in this context is that which occurs above the Mean High Water Spring tides (MHWS) on UK land masses.

    The key function for search and rescue in the UK is to ensure a co-ordinated response to SAR emergencies to search for, rescue or recover those missing, or in distress or potential distress on land, sea and shoreline areas including tidal and inland waters, and to co-ordinate those actions. This includes supporting, monitoring, and advising aircraft, vessels, or persons, who may be in difficulty but not distress, until they reach a place of safety, often unaided.

    The above also, cut and pasted from that gov.uk website. Now, the dates of all those various international and national obligations are between the date range 1925 – 2012 and 100 years is a long time ago but so is 2012. Since 2012 society in the ‘UK’ has changed out of all recognition, societal practices have changed out of all recognition, and since covid lockdown a new madness has taken hold that citizens seek thrills and hypes and media glory, and trust the iphone will get them safely up an icy mountain and down again in their plimsolls and as dark has come in.

    100 years ago if a human went into heavy seas after a weather warning had been issued and stressed, well, it probably wouldn’t happen. The healthy and hearty groups of sometimes very old humans who swim every day off the pebbly south coast would never be so stupid to go in heavy seas, because the point is healthy cold water and some of their ages prove that, not to drown themselves and some passers by preferably as well. Never would they do anything which was a high likelihood of an air and sea rescue, never would they treat other humans like that. 100 years ago, or even in 2012, humans were not en masse going up mountains in Cumbria and Scotland and north Wales at all, or international tourists driving the 500 around the top of Scotland, many places had no one around in winter months, now 365 days a year, and apparently 24/7, the humans are acting contrary to nature, society and any shred of common sense.

    What if the government – who has the responsibility of governance of a people and to ensure services run well and systems work well – was to impose a news black out on the now dramatic BBC Radio 4 that in the next storm which will soon be here or next Christmas and New Year for the festive fun seekers there will be no mention of those who have died in the sea or up mountains?

    What if the government – who has the responsibility of governance of a people and to ensure services run well and systems work well – was to issue an edict, or a rescinding of all those international treaties which are made for situations of accidents and unforeseeable events, not for the ‘UK’ of 2025/2026, and to mandate to all SAR services, the official and the voluntary, that a call out to someone in the sea during a storm or up a mountain after a weather warning had been issued and not a farmer getting a sheep or a cow, that call would just have, ‘Sorry mate, not possible, you made your bed, you lie in it (or rather, die in it)’.

    It’s easy to tell who is stuck while in the course of a job, like farmers, or a nurse, or a long distance lorry driver, or a fishing boat, and 24/7/365 the government’s edict would of course make SAR available and put all resources behind that. For those who have taken the choice to act against all advice and which often results in a passer by dying as well, and sometimes a mountain rescue severely injured for life which has happened in Cumbria, the SAR is simply not available.

    For a start the gov.uk website could announce that apart from those doing their jobs, all the international treaties are now n/a, unilateral detaching, there is no SAR for anyone in the sea or off ground level flat paths in rural and mountain areas between Autumn and Spring Equinoxes, when Helios is at the lowest half of the turning year (on this mass of rock spinning in space). It could also announce there is no chance of sueing – suing? that spelling doesn’t look right – a local council, local police force, local highways, local coastguard, nobody. And with the government mandate to the hysterical BBC Radio 4 news programmes, there is no reporting and absolutely no ‘voice of the survivor pulled from the waves,’ having their moment of glory. Furthermore, bodies will have to be retrieved by those who want to, otherwise they go the way of all the natural world.