Team Member Receives Mayor's Award

Congratulations go to team member Jonty Roe, who was awarded an Erewash Borough Council Mayor's Award for his 38 years of voluntary service with Derby Mountain Rescue Team.

The annual awards are given to residents of Erewash Borough who have given exceptional service to the community over the years. Jonty had been nominated by wife Jennie for his many years of service with mountain rescue and he was selected by a council committee as a worthy recipient of the award. In typical Jonty fashion, he had endeavoured to keep the nomination secret from the rest of his team mates and was somewhat surprised to see myself with a camera skulking outside lkeston Town Hall, where the ceremony was due to take place.


Jonty is one of the longest serving operational members within the team and has served as radio officer for the last 25 years. He is still very much an active member of the team in training and callouts as well as serving on the operational management group.

Keeping it in the family, Jonty's mother was one of the first recipients of an award back in 1980 when they were first introduced, receiving it for going beyond the call of duty with her services as a community nurse.

Busy Bank Holiday

A busy bank holiday weekend saw the team attend three incidents over the period.

On Monday, May 3rd, the team were stationed at Dovedale for a PR and fund-raising event as part of the national Mountain and Cave rescue Awareness day that most mountain rescue teams were taking part in. During the afternoon, a man out walking in the area with his family tripped and injured his ankle. His wife, being aware of the team’s presence in the area, asked for assistance. Team members carried the man by stretcher across the River Dove to a waiting team Land Rover. He was then driven to his car where the family were advised to travel to their nearest A&E department to have the ankle examined.

On the Sunday of the weekend, the team were called to Black Rocks late on Sunday evening, where a mountain biker had had an accident whilst descending from the hill as night fell. He had sustained facial injuries and due to the nature of his accident, was treated as possibly having a spinal injury. He was treated on scene by a team doctor and again evacuated by stretcher to the Land Rover, where he was then driven over 1km on the High Peak Trail to an EMAS ambulance for transport to hospital.

The weekend had started off on Saturday afternoon, with a call to Stanton Moor to assist a woman out walking her dog, who had also tripped and injured her ankle. She had slipped close to the historic bronze age stone circle, the Nine Ladies and had walked a short distance on the injured foot before finding herself unable to continue. Team members examined her on scene and evacuated her by stretcher to where the team Land Rover had managed to gain access. She was then transported to an EMAS road ambulance to be taken to Chesterfield hospital for further treatment.

Multi-Agency Rescue

The team were called out on Friday (5th March) to Thor’s Cave in the Manifold valley to help rescue a man who fallen 50ft down a precipitous slope after falling off the path whilst descending from the cave.

The man, in his fifties, had been out walking with his wife when the accident happened. They had visited the popular local attraction and were making their way back down to the valley floor when he stumbled and fell from the path down a steep slope, coming to a rest against a tree 50 ft above the river and sustaining injuries to his ribs, wrist, face and head

In a multi service rescue, seventeen members of the Derby team were called along with a Wetton & Alstonfields Community First Responder, police officers, two WMAS ambulance crews and a WMAS incident controller, Derbyshire Fire Service, Staffordshire Fire Service, including their specialist Rope Rescue Unit, the Hazardous Area Response Team and two air ambulances from the Midlands Air Ambulance and the Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Rutland Air Ambulance services. Over 30 people were involved in the rescue, made difficult by the very steep terrain and loose earth in at the incident site

When the team arrived on scene after being called out at 13:45, the ambulance and fire service had already reached the casualty and had put him into a scoop stretcher ready for evacuation and were awaiting the specialist rescue teams. DMRT members arrived on site and transferred the casualty to their rescue stretcher and were then able to carry the stretcher to the valley floor, aided by a rope system. The casualty was then carried across the river to be transferred to hospital by helicopter

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Pay It With Flowers

The Mickleover Floral Art Group have raised £1000 for local charities during the last year and on Tuesday night (9th December) presented the team with a cheque for £500.

The money had been raised by the 60 strong group by means of a “penny box” at their monthly meetings, selling produce from the chairman’s allotments, selling pickles made by the group treasurer from the chairman’s produce and by various other charity nights held throughout the year.

Chairman Robin Cobb and vice-chairman Carol Beard, presented the cheque to the team’s fundraising officer, Robin Goodchild at the start of the group’s annual general meeting, held at a packed St. Johns Church Hall in Devonshire Drive.

A second cheque for £500 was presented to the Derby and District Talking Newspaper Association, who provide audio tapes of newspapers for the blind and partially sighted.

City Centre Collection

Last weekend (Saturday 14th November), the team took to the streets of Derby city centre as part of their annual public awareness and fund-raising day.

With the team's vehicles and giant climber mascot situated at points along St Peters Street and team members and supporters located at points all across the city centre, the team collected £3130 during the course of the day.

The team would like to thank all those who contributed and also those supporters who came along to help the team on the day.

Thorpe Search

The team were called out to Thorpe, near Dovedale, in the early hours of Saturday morning (10th October) to search for a missing 21 year old vulnerable woman.

Police had contacted the team after receiving information that the woman was located somewhere in the vicinity of Thorpe Pasture. Team members were alerted by pager just before midnight on Friday and assembled at Thorpe Car Park to begin the search. The team managed to make contact with the missing person by mobile phone and started to search nearby hills when a light alerted rescuers to Hamston Hill, where the woman was located. Although cold, she was relatively unhurt, but was examined by a team paramedic and doctor before being evacuated by stretcher to a team Land Rover at the bottom of the hill. She was then transported to the road, where she was transferred to an EMAS (East Midlands Ambulance Service) ambulance and taken to the Royal Derby Hospital to be checked over.

Fourteen members of the team were involved in the search, with more members turning back whilst en route when the team were stood down once the woman had been located.