Rescue teams hail 'fantastic' emergency exercise

Lanehead quarry at Ribblesdale cement works in Lancashire was used to stage a major 10-hour emergency exercise involving more than 90 people. The exercise was prompted by a crash in Peru earlier this year when a bus toppled off a cliff-top road, killing 48 people.

Heading up the training drill was Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service’s Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) unit – one of 20 specialists teams set up across the UK following the 9/11 and 7/7 terrorist attacks.

Also involved were responders from all the emergency services, local mountain rescue and canine search teams, Heidelberg Materials staff and students from local colleges, who acted as injured people. Volunteers from the Salvation Army provided food and refreshments.

The scene which confronted the rescue workers involved a bus packed with day trippers which had gone out of control and hit a number of other vehicles before plunging off a mountain pass on to a ledge below the road. There were 35 “casualties”, some trapped under the bus and others in vehicles, and the rescue teams faced significant issues in gaining access to the scene.

Exercise director Dave Byers from the Lancashire USAR team said: “We had been planning a major event of this type for some time. I had a vision of how the scene should be set up and Heidelberg Materials did a fantastic job replicating the ideas. A lot of important lessons were learned on the day.”

Quarry manager Sam Wrathall and his team worked hard in the run-up to the event. “It took our lads three days to put the bus in place and then build cells in which to place the dead and injured,” he said. “We also had to stage an accident scene with a minibus and two cars.”

First on the scene were Heidelberg Materials first-aiders John Wilson, Dave Gaskell, Dale Whittaker and Ben King, who offered initial treatment for victims until the first rescue teams arrived.

Ribblesdale plant manager Terry Reynolds said: “We were delighted to assist the USAR team and learned a lot from how they handled the situation.”