By: Blonde Two

All of the Dartmoor Search and Rescue team members are volunteers. They rely on public donation.  You really should click here and make a donation just in case you need help one day.  http://www.dsrtashburton.org.uk/donate/

As you know, we Blondes spent last Saturday up on Dartmoor (no surprises there) playing the part (with our youngsters) of casualties for Ashburton Dartmoor Search and Rescue team.

We discovered that pre-arranged accidents are not like real ones in that you can adjust and tweak them according to how hard you want the people sorting them out to work. The other thing that can happen with fake accidents is that you can also arrive on the moor expecting a broken leg, fully prepared with pull-up-able trousers, shaved legs and something soft to sit on only to find out that you have, in fact, banged your head (which is ok if you have remembered to colour your roots that month!)  I had not, by the way, remembered to shave my legs the day I actually did break my ankle.

I accompanied two of our young casualties.  They were originally supposed to be confused and lost after leaving their injured comrades to fetch help.  I choose one particular girl for her ability to appear confused when most of the time she isn’t.  She played this part to perfection, particularly when she found out that she was no longer supposed to be confused but had in fact broken her femur.  Being a bright young lady, she already knew where her femur was and happily wedged herself under a rock to await help.  It was when help arrived in the form of red-jacketed Dartmoor Rescue bods that the confusion element struck for real.  It would appear that she is such a polite young lady that, when confronted with several adults who asked if she had broken her ankle, she thought it would be rude to argue with them.

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Those of you who know a bit about broken bones will know that ankles are not as serious as femurs so this, along with the fact that we were found quickly, served to make our scenario much easier to deal with and, I am told, “nowhere near as much fun!”