This years Solway Coast Rally was held at a completly
new venue due to the Range at Kirkcudbright being used for militery exercises,
This year it was held at Forrest Lodge near Dalry.There were five stages
in this years event with the longest one stage 3 being just over seven miles,
stages one and four were run twice with the second runs being altered slightly.
This year our Control Unit was on site and for the first time we were running
a mix of Amateur and 81Mhz MSA radio. There was a bad off in stage one not
long after the start of the rally.The following is a report on the incident
by Davy MM0KBT
Just when you thought it was going to be the routine stage start - checking numbers when they leave the start and listening to make sure they finished, we noted a couple of cars had not finished the first stage and asked cars to look out for OK boards. Then news came via the radio network that a car was off around J10 and needed rescued. We promptly stopped the stage and a rescue and recovery crew where sent in to deal with the incident. We stayed at the start as the crews had comms with control on the other network.
Their comms however
where not reliable so we where asked to go to the scene to assist with
message passing to and from control and the services on sight.
When we arrived we could not park close to the incident for other vehicles. After a couple of runs to and from the scene we were allowed to be relocated nearer to the incident. A Peugeot Car had left the road and rolled leaving the navigator trapped in the car with neck injuries. The rescue crew had cut the roof from the vehicle and where attending to the casualty. The crew at the scene realised the benefit of our comms and past all messages through us back to control with regular updates and a request for an air ambulance to meet at a location further into the stage.
The casualty was transferred to an awaiting ambulance to rendezvous with the Helicopter. As the ambulance was about to move it was apparent that the casualty could not be moved by road so we had to ask if the helicopter could do a lift from the crash site. A new reference was given using the trusty E-trex and soon after, a Sea King helicopter was circling round us. We expected the winch-man to lower himself and a basket out as the terrain was very rough apart from the narrow forest road, but to our disbelief the helicopter kept descending until it was “parked” perfectly on the track!
The casualty was transferred to the helicopter and made off for Dumfries infirmary where they said they had suffered severe bruising and where keeping them in for observation. The car was then extracted from the scenery and we returned to the start of stage 4 which was a re-run of the same stage and went without incident, thankfully. On the whole the incident was dealt with very efficiently by the rally organisers and the rescue people at the scene and I feel that Raynet's communications added to the smoothness of the operation.