Jess Moon Bowen, Brecon Mountain Rescue team member
Jess and I first met on our Mountain Leader training course, way back in 2015. Having worked in the outdoor industry as a freelancer for a number of years, Jess is now an activity team leader at UWC Atlantic College, teaching mainly power boating to students from 95 different nationalities as part of their International Baccalaureate. For nearly ten years, she has volunteered for the Brecon Mountain Rescue team, and has kindly taken some time out of her very busy schedule to tell us more about it.
Jess kitted up and ready to go, photo courtesy of Nigel Millard Photography
What made you want to join the Mountain Rescue team?
I was out with one of my freelancer friends – he was on the team – and he suggested that I come along to a training session, which I did and absolutely loved. I really wanted to join but I didn’t feel good enough, I just thought ‘there’s no way I can do this’. But I applied, did the test and passed, which was amazing.
What is the joining process like?
Each team has its own prerequisites. For some teams you fill in a form and they take you on. For the Brecon team though, you attend an open evening, where they explain the commitment and what’s expected of you, and then they invite you to an assessment evening. I very much remember mine – they normally make you crawl up a waterfall as a test of fitness and fear of heights, but we turned up to find it completely iced over! We went up the side instead in pitch black – we started at 7pm and trudged the mountains until about 11pm whilst they tested our navigation, our fitness and also our cohesion with the rest of the team. That’s a massive thing – you need to have a team that gets on. They tell us then that evening whether we passed.
After that you have a year of training, when you’re not on any callouts, and if you pass that you go on a six month probation. They see how many callouts you attend in that time, and decide whether or not you’re committed enough to join the team. So it’s quite a lengthy process.
What kind of skills are they looking for?
The essential things are navigation and fitness, but if you have any other skills, that’s beneficial. We’ve got a team doctor – he’s a GP in the daytime, and then we’ve got about five paramedics as well. About 60% of the team are trained up to be casualty carers: we do a course that allows us to administer morphine - quite advanced first aid. About 90% of the team have their Mountain Leader qualification, but it’s not compulsory.
How often is the training and what does it consist of?
We train every Wednesday night; each of the four teams in South Wales trains on a different night. We also train once a month on a Sunday for a full day, with set criteria that we have to cover. A lot of what we focus on is medical, because we’re generally going to people who are injured. We look at search techniques, hill fitness – we have a fitness test every six months to check that we can get to the top of Pen Y Fan in a certain time carrying a certain weight. We do water training, water awareness, stretcher lowering, technical systems and team building - lots of different elements.
How many new members do you take on each year?
We took on a group last year who are in their probationary period now, but generally if we lose members, then we take some on. I’m responsible for the social media side of the team, and it’s been amazing, since COVID hit, the number of emails that I’ve had from people asking whether they can join the team. But we’re full!
How big is the team?
We have fifty members.
What kind of commitment is expected of a team member?
We have to do at least 25% of each element - training, callouts and fundraising. We’re funded by public donations, and we have to raise around £55,000 a year to run, so we organise fundraising events for that.
What’s the spread of men and women on the team?
With the new intake, we’ve probably got about nine women, which is quite a lot compared to some other teams. Obviously in the grand scheme of things, nine out of fifty is pretty poor, but it’s a lot better than it was years ago.
The team on callout
How is the team managed?
We have a team leader, appointed at an AGM, and deputy team leaders. We then have water officers, equipment officers, training officers, IT officers and people who help out with the kit and things like that. We’re all volunteers, which makes the time commitment for the team leaders even more unbelievable – they also have to attend joint team leader meetings, organization meetings and MREW (Mountain Rescue England and Wales) meetings.
What is your role?
I’m involved in training – I’ve been training the new cohort that’s come in. I’m also in charge of all the IT stuff - email addresses, passwords, all the exciting things! I run the social media, and if we have a high profile callout, I deal with the press, which can be fun. I’m in the water team as well – I’m one of the swift water rescue technicians, the only female actually. I throw myself in the river every now and then and hopefully I get rescued!
What area do you guys cover?
It’s a huge area – half of Pen Y Fan is ours. We go from Brecon as far west as Aberystwyth and as far north as Machynlleth. We had a callout this morning in Knighton, which is pretty much on the border between England and Wales. It’s a huge area, and requires a lot of driving.
How close do you have to live to the area to be allowed to join the team?
You have to be within 40 minutes of the Brecon area. I’m about 30 mins away - I actually live closer to the Central Beacons team, but it just so happened that the friend I spoke to was in the Brecon team. And then I loved everyone on the team so I didn’t want to leave – they’re my family.
Do people generally do it for a long time?
We’ve got people who’ve done it for 25/30 years. I can’t believe I’m not far off 10 years myself! We’ve got a 74 year old on the team; believe it or not, he’s fitter than all of us!
How are you alerted for a callout?
We have an incident commander on a rota system – they get the initial alert from the police, and then they push that out to the team. We used to have pagers like the RNLI, but we’ve gone to using mobile phones now. We get a text message to say ‘I will respond’, which means a call has been initiated, which is when you start pulling on your superhero pants, make a quick sandwich and a flask of tea, getting motivated and ready.
We then text back, either SAR A, to say that you’re attending, SAR L if you’ve got limited availability, or if you’re completely unavailable, SAR N. This morning, for example, I knew I had to work, so I had to reply SAR N, but I don’t like doing that. It’s almost like an addiction – whenever you get a call, whatever you’re doing, you feel you have to go - you feel really guilty when you don’t go.
What’s the next step after you text SAR A?
That’s when I’d get in my car and start driving. We have updates en route – they’ll give us a grid reference for the rendezvous, and we’ll be met there by a search manager, and then tasked out.
Certain people have access to the compound in Brecon where we keep our vehicles; when we get a call they head there. We’ve got blue light drivers, who are allowed to use them if we have a medical emergency. We’ve got a Land Rover Defender, and we’ve been donated a Gator – a 4x4 off road vehicle, which is really useful for getting kit up onto the mountain. We’ve also got a minibus, which is really useful say if we have a call in mid-Wales – people like myself who are half an hour away from base, we’ll meet up there and take the minibus up.
What happens after you meet at the rendezvous?
If it’s a medical emergency, the hasty party (generally the fittest people!) will be pushed out first. I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of that a few times when I’ve been in the area. People then arrive in dribs and drabs, so we set out in parties (no disco involved), all managed from the control vehicle. We have a spot tracker, so that they can see exactly where we are, and a party pack with certain items like a rollmat, first aid kit and oxygen.
If it’s a search, we have an app on our phone that gives us the area we have to comb. If it’s a known location we just head there and assist the medical team that have already arrived.
Do you use map and compass or GPS?
Both really. We’ve all got a map and compass in our bags, but we’re really lucky that we’re given ViewRanger for free, so we use that a lot. We’ve got GPS units as well that track us, so that the police can see exactly where we’ve been, and we have a tracking app on our phones for the team. So if I’ve just left home, they know when I’m going to arrive, and can already plan a task for me before I even get there. If we go off the road, or have an accident, they can see that we’ve stayed stationary for some time on the way to a callout, and investigate. The police actually admire what we have because they’ve not got it, which is quite scary!
If you don’t have a location, how do you comb an area?
We use a SAR lock, where we send the missing person a link, which they click on, and it gives us pretty much an exact location. However, if they’ve got no signal or no battery, we just have to go off the information we’ve been given – they might say something like ‘we’re somewhere in Pen Y Fan’, which could be anywhere. In that instance we’d set teams going up every entrance onto Pen Y Fan, we’d possibly call neighbouring teams to come in from the other side, and we can clamp down on them. It’s pretty amazing how we find them.
How do you keep in touch with each other?
We use digital radios, as well as aerial repeaters that help us communicate. If we’re in a really remote location, we have someone up high with an aerial to act as a link between us and the control vehicle. We have a satellite dish as well, which gives us full WiFi in the control vehicle. That’s a really cool piece of kit.
When would you bring in a helicopter?
Helicopters tend to come out for life-threatening injuries, but until you get to the person you can’t really know what’s happening. If we’re in a really remote location and we know that it’s going to be a four or five hour extraction then we’d call them up, explain the situation and then if they’re not busy they’ll come out – they’re very helpful.
Would you ever use a helicopter to try and search for somebody?
Yes, they help us on a lot of searches – they have infrared systems and other things that can save us a massive amount of work, which is great, but you can’t really beat eyes on the ground sometimes.
Jess in full COVID PPE with the rescue helicopter
How often do callouts end in a false alarm?
I’d probably say 5-10%, not many. The coordinator will try to minimize the callouts – often they’ll be on the phone with the person and will be able to talk them down off the hill. We’re putting ourselves at risk every time we go out, so if we can minimize callouts that’s great.
Do you often get called out for suicide attempts?
Yes, unfortunately, and especially with COVID, people’s mental health has plummeted. The majority of our callouts are for what we call high risk missing persons, so either they’ve gone missing and are known to be depressed, or they’ve left notes or things like that. Some we find before they’ve done anything, which is great, but others are not so fortunate. For the families it’s closure though, and it avoids any members of the public coming across these people and causing distress.
Are you trained in how to approach people in that state?
Yes, we do lots on mental health awareness – one guy in the team is very active in mental health first aid, so we work a lot with him doing training exercises. Sometimes you get people who are violent towards you, and we’re all trained in how to deal with that. For any distressing things – if we had a deceased person for example – we would have a review afterwards, and then we get contacted by a trauma team to make sure we’re ok. We’re also offered counselling from the police after any distressing rescues. But I think, awful as it is to say, you just get used to it.
Do you only operate in the mountains?
No, we get called to urban areas as well, rivers especially. Flooding is becoming a regular thing now – we get called out to extract people from their houses.
Is there any such thing as a typical callout?
Snapped ankles are very common – when we had the lockdown eased not long ago, we had three callouts in the same week, in the same place, with the same ankle injury! I’d say most of the people we rescue are well-equipped, but they’ve just had an accident, it’s just one of those things – it can happen to any of us.
How long can you be out on a callout?
If we’re on a search we’re only allowed six hours, then we have to have a break. You can be there for days – we were on a search in Builth Wells for a week.
If you’re following a lead from a member of the public, say someone has heard a cry for help, do you have a cut-off time when you decide to stop the search?
We usually take advice from the police on that. If they’ve done their enquiries, we’ve searched a large area, and we’ve exhausted every possibility, then we get stood down. Sometimes we’re stood down temporarily and then get recalled – sometimes even a week later. Generally cries for help can be someone being overcautious – it’s usually a sheep!
Once you have people down, what happens then?
Normally, if we know we have an injured person, we would have an ambulance on standby. In the current situation, with a shortage of ambulances, we sometimes have to take them to hospital ourselves.
Even when we come off the hill, we’ve then got to strip all the kit down, wash it all, and then put it back on top of the Land Rover. We generally don’t leave until everyone’s off the hill, so if someone’s searching, even if someone’s just coming back to the road, we’d wait, just in case they got into any difficulties.
Have you ever had to rescue animals?
Some teams would go out for animals, but we’re quite strict – we only go out for humans who are in danger. There have been occasions where animals have caused humans to put themselves in danger – for example a dog runs over the side of Pen Y Fan, the owner tries to go after it then falls off the cliff. If we know that the owner is actively looking for an animal then we will go out and assist, because we don’t want the person to hurt themselves. But generally we wouldn’t go out for animals. To be honest though, in terms of fundraising – you get thousands more views on social media when you rescue a dog!
How has COVID affected Mountain Rescue?
Massively. We were initially training face to face in small groups, but then things got more serious and now we train online. I think it’s really affected a lot of the team – we’re so used to that social interaction. The PPE that we have to wear on callouts is tough. When we had that really hot spell and lockdown was lifted, we were expected to go up in full waterproofs, helmet, goggles, mask and two pairs of gloves.
Our callouts have dropped dramatically recently, because the Brecon Beacons is essentially shut down. No one’s allowed up there, even if they live in the area.
We are getting the odd person going out, which they shouldn’t be, but we are there if they need us. It’s frustrating though – we’re the ones that have to rescue them if they get into trouble. I think most of them view a £30 fine as a cheap day out. But we have a policy of non-judgement; we treat everyone the same.
Jess and co on a joint South Wales teams training
Are your employers pretty flexible to allow you to take callouts?
For someone like me, if I have things on then I can’t go, but if it were something serious and I said to my boss I need to go, they would allow me to. We’ve had teachers who’ve been allowed to leave lessons. Employers are actually really understanding and helpful; they admire what we do which is nice.
A lot of the members are self-employed, so they’re able to up sticks and go.
Do you have a maximum number of callouts that you are allowed to do?
No, and I think that should be a thing. We’ve got certain members in the team who are completely addicted and turn up to every callout, which is great, but I think sometimes you tailor your life to it. For example, if I’m going out for the day with my grandparents or my fella, I’m almost thinking ‘where can I drop them if I get a callout?’, or am I close enough to Brecon? So if me and my partner are going on a day out, I’ll say ‘fancy going to Brecon for the day?’, haha! He’s been dragged on many a callout, sat in the car for hours on end bored to tears, or we’ve had something planned and a callout comes in. It frustrates him a bit, but he understands that’s my love in life, apart from him obviously!
Do you have any particularly memorable rescues?
My first callout was quite memorable, but it wasn’t really a nice one - three SAS soldiers died from overheating whilst on exercises in the Beacons in 2014. I got my pager on the Friday, and on Saturday we got the callout. That was right in at the deep end.
Another memorable one was searching for a couple of motocross bikers in mid-Wales. The call came through about these guys who didn’t know where they were; it was heavy rain, fog, horrible conditions, and one was diabetic. I turned up late in the evening, and we had a five hour trudge through elephant grass, absolutely soaked, it was horrendous. We finally come across them, and one of them, his first words were ‘this ain’t no job for a woman!’, so I said to him ‘look mate, do you want rescuing or not?’. We had to get the fire service in to bring boats down the lake to get them out, otherwise it would have been another huge walkout – I don’t think they would have been able to do it.
We had a late callout, very snowy, very cold, for two ice climbers. We managed to locate them, and then had to wait about 4 or 5 hours with them until the helicopter could get to us. It was horrendous, so cold. I think I got home at 8 in the morning, and we were suffering with hypothermia as well. It sounds weird, but it was a great experience.
The ones I find really rewarding are callouts for dementia patients who’ve gone missing. Generally they go back to their childhood, so they’ll wander the hills. When we find them, we’ve got an 80-year-old person and their family are worried sick, so handing them back over to their family is just the most special time for me, that’s what I’m there for.
What advice would you give to people heading out after the restrictions are lifted, possibly for the first time in a year?
Take it easy, don’t overdo it. Start low, work up to a standard where you feel comfortable and fit enough to get out into the hills – there’s no rush. Make sure you take all the equipment that you need – anything can happen anywhere. A little rucksack with a bottle of water, map, compass, spare jumper and gloves, even in the summer, it could save your life. Buy yourself a survival bag, they’re brilliant. And take a fully charged phone.
Also take your litter home. The amount of litter I’ve seen in my local area, from people who don’t usually go out into the hills, is just unbelievable. If you’ve taken it up full, you can take it back empty.
If someone gets into difficulties on the hill, at what point should they call Mountain Rescue?
As soon as they feel that they’re in danger. We can always get stood down en route if you find your way off the hill – it’s better to call us and we end up getting stood down than not call, and we have to deal with a casualty. If you’re on the hills lost, hungry and cold, you can easily get hypothermia and that’s when things start going downhill. Call us sooner rather than later.
How do you contact Mountain Rescue?
Call 999 and ask for the police, and then explain that you need Mountain Rescue. They will ask for your name, number, and location if you know it. If you can read a map, a grid reference is invaluable. OS locate is a great free app that everyone should have - it gives your precise grid reference.
What can people do to help Mountain Rescue?
Listen to our advice. If we tell you to stay in one place, stay in one place. We’ve often had it where people move to try and stay warm. But if we’ve been given your location, we’ll be heading there. If you then move, that makes things much longer and more difficult for us. Don’t panic, it will take time for us to get to you, so keep yourself warm with extra layers.
All Mountain Rescue is voluntary and relies on public donations. We normally run fundraising events, but it’s been really difficult this year as nothing has been able to happen – we’re a year behind with our fundraising. So please donate if you can.
Mountain Rescue services are free to those in need because the teams are staffed by volunteers, who expect nothing more than a thank you. However, equipment, vehicles and maintaining a headquarters all cost money so those very same volunteers have to raise sufficient funds to maintain the service. It costs approximately £55,000 per annum to run the team. If you would like to donate to Brecon Mountain Rescue you can do so here:
