Police underwater specialists brief Eden rescue teams
Patterdale Mountain Rescue Team (MRT) recently hosted a training meeting with representatives of the North West Police Underwater Search and Marine Unit and this was attended by members of the Penrith, Kirkby Stephen and Patterdale MRTs.
PC Diane Owen, Community Officer for the Ullswater Ward set up the meeting as a follow up to a recent visit by Patterdale MRT’s leadership team to Cumbria Constabulary HQ.
“The more we understand how our partners work, the better,” says Patterdale Team Leader, Martin Cotterell, “and we found the visit to Carleton HQ really useful. Diane suggested the meeting with members of the regional underwater unit and it made sense to extend the invitation to our colleagues in neighbouring rescue teams.”
The North West Police Underwater Search and Marine Unit can be called out to search anywhere between North Wales and the Scottish Border, covering the force areas of Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire, Lancashire, North Wales and Cumbria.
Established as a regional unit in 2000, it has 14 members, based in Cheshire, Lancashire and Merseyside, and the unit can handle incidents in any of the six force areas. Members dive up to 50 metres deep searching for missing people, weapons, stolen goods and submerged vehicles and there have been several incidents on Ullswater in the past year where MRT members and Police have worked together.
“Phil Brooks from Lancashire and Colin Samuel from Greater Manchester gave us an insight into the scope of their dive teams, how they work, the technology that they have available,” says Martin, “and, most importantly for us, they were able to give us practical advice on what we should do to make our initial searches as useful as possible.”