Emergency services carried out a Lake District training exercise at the weekend.
The Coastguard is responsible for the co-ordination of emergency response on some inland waters, including Derwentwater, Ullswater, Windermere and Coniston Water as part of The Lakes Plan for Major Incidents.
The Lakes Plan makes sure the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and/or Cumbria police processes of tasking and co-ordination of several statutory, voluntary and local commercial vessel operators to conduct effective search and rescue on these waters and shorelines.
An exercise was carried out on Derwentwater on Sunday and teams were told there was a canoeist overdue and his wife had raised the alarm. There was also the possibility of a second canoeist missing.
Co-ordinated by HM Coastguards Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Holyhead, with the region’s coastal operations area commander on scene overseeing the exercise, assets from Whitehaven Coastguard Rescue Team, Maryport Coastguard Rescue Team and Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service joined colleagues from Keswick Mountain Rescue Team at their base.
Teams worked collaboratively to systematically search the shoreline and surrounding areas as well as afloat, until the casualty was located, stabilised and brought to safety for handover to the next level of care.
The objective of the exercise was to test co-ordination via the Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre and on-ground commanders.
Mike Buratti, HM Coastguard area commander for North West England, said “Multi-agency exercises such as this are vital to demonstrate how successfully we can work with other agencies in the event of an incident.
“Regular training and exercising with partner agencies is essential and allows us to adapt, learn and constantly improve.”
