16 May 2010

Serious rescue, half-hearted blogging

I don’t tend to go anywhere without my camera. I’m a blogger, after all. So I even crawled through the tightest places of Pridhamsleigh cave, doing rescue training, with my camera in my chest pocket. The blog bears witness to this. But the chest pocket is not a really good place for the camera, and beside that, both camera and ribs suffer some wear and tear from such circumstances. So for the next training I decided to be a serious rescuer, and leave the camera in my bag. And of course this time there was no squeezing involved, and I could have easily taken it. Ah well!
It became clear that this time the training focused not on retrieving victims from squeezy and uncomfortable places, but more on scouting skills. The alleged victims were reported to have gone missing in a mine with many, many entrances, many of which being dead ends. This was more about effectively spreading out, systematic searching, and lots of feedback over the radio. We spent most of the time in the woods! But it was both educational and fun. Monday there will be the annual general meeting of the rescue people, and I presume there it will be decided if I join them for real! And if I do, I'll try to find a good balance between developing my rescue skills and maintaining my journalistic merits.

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