In Case of emergency

As with all things, prevention is better than cure, so dealing with outdoor emergencies starts with planning before the event. Both event leaders and all attendees should always consider what could go wrong on an event and what they would do if it did. If you are unsure about any of this please raise it with a member of the committee who will be happy to point you in the right direction.

Inevitably though things do sometimes go wrong and if you are not able to walk any injured person back to safety then you will need to call for help. All such assistance in England and Wales (or Scotland) is provided by Mountain Rescue teams:

https://www.mountain.rescue.org.uk/contact-us/

As per their website (link above):

If you have an accident in the hills dial 999 or 112. Ask for ‘Police’ then ‘Mountain Rescue’. To use emergency SMS service: Text 999 and send ‘Police’ + details of incident + location.

Whilst waiting for assistance ensure that the group stays together and keeps warm and dry.

Once everyone is safely off the hill, there are two things which may need to be considered from an ECOG perspective.

First, if the injured parties ‘emergency contact’ needs to be informed but the contact details are not immediately available, the details which ECOG hold can be accessed by contacting any member of the committee using the ECOG Committee email group

ecog-committee@googlegroups.com

The first member of the committee to access the email will take appropriate action by:

· notifying the committee via email that they are handling the information request

· providing the requested emergency contact details and helping with any further advice requested

Secondly, after any event involving medical treatment, mountain rescue or damage to third party property, the Membership Secretary should be contacted so that an incident report can be produced for onwards submission to the BMC and our insurers.

Emergency situations and serious injury are rare but can occur. It is therefore best to be prepared!