Search and Rescue Exercise and Asda

Simon recently had the chance to take part in a Search and Rescue exercise with the FIDF.  SAR is just one role that FIDF can fulfill within the islands, and practice makes perfect.

Simon arrived at the FIDF hall to find that the sails from the Hugo Boss round the world yacht were laid out in the hall.  The yacht had called in for repairs as they had suffered some damage in a storm.  The main sail was laid out, and in had to be folded back, as it was too big to fit in the hall.  All the others were rolled up at the side waiting for repair, and they all seemed to be in the same state.

We moved down the the school field for a safety brief with the helicopter, trying not to giggle too much when the loady told us to keep clear of the "big bloody spinny thing".  The school field is where the SAR helo lands for all medical emergencies, and is also a designated helo landing site for all helicopters.

Frank being a model for the harness!

We then moved to Wireless Ridge to find the casualty, some had to walk in extended line along the ridge, whilst I had to sweep along the ridge in a zig pattern from top to bottom on a quad!  As ever, more traces of the conflict could be found.

It took us about 30-40 minutes to find the "casualty" so we called for the helo to come and perform the medivac

I videoed the helo coming in to land, and then the take off, they can be seen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL-rKbsAO30

That done, I got home to find our Asda order had been delivered.  This caused much excitement!!  Food prices can sometimes be hard to stomach, and some basic essentials can be in short supply, for example, we have just gone a week with no eggs!!  As I have mentioned before, meat is stupidly cheap, but value range baked beans can be close to £1 a tin.  No wonder that lots of people are ordering through Asda and using a shipping company to send the order down.  We have now joined that club!  You simply do an online Asda order, get it delivered to the shipping company, where they parcel it all up and load it into a container.  We hadn't quite realised how much we had ordered though!!

It took the rest of the day to unpack it and find places to store it all, but what a difference!  This week we have only bought meat and vegetables, and seem to saved £60 this week alone!!  Lots of people say that the first order is the biggest, as then you are just topping up each time, and as we are getting ready for another order, I am certainly tempted to agree!!