Annual Review 2021

Annual Review 2021

Scottish Mountain Rescue have published their Annual Review for 2021.

The Annual Review covers the year 2021 and looks at the work of the volunteer rescue teams, team member profiles and rescue stories, as well as achievements that have been made over the year.

Chair of SMR, Damon Powell, talks about the year experienced by the mountain rescue volunteers.  “2021 has the busiest ever year on record for mountain rescue teams, in terms of the number of times teams were mobilised (951), separate incidents (660) or the number of hours volunteers spent on rescues (31,799).  In fact, on 3 July 2021 there were 12 team activations.

“If the upward trend in callouts continues, this will undoubtedly impact the teams in a variety of ways.  They may need to increase membership, requiring additional equipment and potentially extra vehicles; equipment used on callouts will need to be replaced more frequently and the volunteers will have less time to train as a team.

“Despite the increase in callouts, as the country returned to ‘normal’ Scottish Mountain Rescue were able to deliver a national training programme over the past year, engaging with around 400 volunteers across a wide range of disciplines, for instance casualty care, rigging, avalanche awareness and wellbeing.

“Notwithstanding the increased challenges faced by our volunteers and the increased demands on their time, our mountain rescue team members remain available “Any Hour, Any Day, Any Weather” to provide a world-class rescue service across Scotland.”

Kev Mitchell, Vice Chair of Scottish Mountain Rescue said “We hope the production of our Annual Review will give the general public a flavour of the hard work and commitment shown by Scottish Mountain Rescue team volunteers and, while we are proud of 31,799 hours of volunteering on callouts, this figure can easily be doubled when training activities are taken into account.  A truly magnificent effort from SMR teams who have faced challenge after challenge with the changes Covid-19 has thrown at them but, despite this, continue to carry on Volunteering to Save Lives, Any Hour, Any Day, Any Weather.”

This year’s Annual Review reflects on the exceptionally busy year the mountain rescue teams have experienced and the huge amount of work carried out by the teams to ensure that an effective and efficient service can continue to be delivered across Scotland.

The Annual Review is available in flipping format by clicking here and paper copies are available on request from info@scottishmountainrescue.org.

PDF Version is available here.