Dave Bell
Dave belongs to: Tynemouth Volunteer Life Brigade
Dave is an Engineering Manager. He joined the Tynemouth Volunteer Life Brigade to give something back for the pleasure he has had from the sea. He is a Captain.
Dave was interviewed by Carl Greenwood on 7 December 2005. The interview took place at Tynemouth Volunteer Life Brigade garage and lasted 13 minutes and 17 seconds.
A call out on the piers
"We were called nearly a month ago, middle of November"
We were called nearly a month ago, middle of November, to an incident of two guys with very serious head injuries on the end of the pier. It was, it has just been in all of the papers.
These two guys were going to go fishing on the pier, and were busy climbing over and they fell. And they had fairly significant injuries. The paramedics were, arrived just as we started to turn up and we actually put the ladders in and got the paramedics to the casualties because the gates were locked and they were on the far side, so we had to get into the gates, get to them and then we stretchered them, put them into stretchers, spinal boards, stabilised them- the paramedics were, at this point, running the show because that’s what they’re good at; it’s all the getting things in, getting things out.
We got them into the stretchers and the heli- RAF Rescue 131, the Sea King from Boulmer came down and picked both casualties up and took them to hospital. And that was well, we did all the running around getting people in, getting people out, making sure everyone was safe because there’s, there are people who don’t often go onto slippy rocks and stuff, and when you’ve got a paramedic wandering around who has just been out of training for a few weeks and doesn’t know what to expect on the rocks- we’ve got, you know, we’ve got an obligation to keep people safe.
We called in the lifeboat as well to act as a safety boat, just in case someone went in the water, you’ve got a method of saying, “get in,” but that happens, obviously our intent to keep things very, very safe because the last thing you want, when you go rescue a casualty, to become more casualties. Of course it gives the rest of us more work.
Dave has 7 memories in the memorynet:
Dave's memories with a Roles and Routines theme:
Role at the Tynemouth Volunteer Life Brigade
Brigade members carrying out a training exercise of Collingwood Field
Dave's other memories:
This memory has these themes:
Danger | Environment | Safety | Skills | Volunteering
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