September 11 2019

Imagine a world before Facebook

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Imagine a world before Facebook and Twitter... a world where we wrote letters, printed photos, called friends or loved-ones on a landline, and signed for card payments or even paid with cheques! 18-years ago that world began to change, Facebook wouldn’t be around for another 3 years and Twitter another 3 after that, children born then can now vote and drive a car. Those children, now adults, think taking shoes off for security and not being able to have more than 100ml of any one liquid in hand luggage is normal for a flight.

Amid this uncertainty, something has not changed since, while the possibility of attacks across the world remains, there is a comforting and sobering constant: men and women running towards the danger and devastation, paid and unpaid, employees and volunteers alike, stepping forward, putting themselves in harm’s way to help others, to save lives and to alleviate distress.

Many of those 18 years ago did not know the impact and implications that were to follow, the lives changed or lost. Today we remember all our emergency service colleagues, health care professionals, and “passers-by” who stepped forward, who ran towards a falling skyscraper, who stayed inside ushering others to safety, and risked or lost their lives in the process; and the families and friends of all those who lost their lives or whose lives were affected that day.

We stand alongside all those who, since that day, have chosen to continue with or join an emergency service, whether paid or unpaid. We stand together, members of local and national resilience forums, training and preparing for the day we hope will never come.

The role of mountain rescue teams continues to change and grow as we align with more and more industry/government standards and respond to a widening variety of incidents. Air disasters such as Lockerbie and Kegworth, searching for missing persons, abducted children such as April Jones, murder victims such as “The Matlock Murders”, wide-scale flood events such as Carlisle, Manchester and York, catastrophic infrastructure failure such as the Toddbrook reservoir and the one that started it all for Derby MRT a group of 3 missing Rover Scouts in 1964 who sadly lost their lives.

Volunteers, on-call, every hour, every day, every year

You can sign up as a supporter here: https://www.derbymrt.org.uk/p/supporters-group