Mantle of the Expert - Mountain Rescue

Above the snow line, a lone climber is in serious trouble after falling from a steep peak and injuring her leg. The wound is bleeding badly, but she hasn’t yet lost consciousness. With frozen fingers she gropes for her mobile phone and speed dials the number of the only people who can now save her - the mountain rescue team.

In our Mantle of the Expert lesson we became a Mountain Rescue Team (MRT) and rushed to help a climber who had become injured on the mountainside. In our teams we conversed with the climber on the phone, asking a number of important questions to establish what had happened and what our next steps needed to be. In small teams we wrote a list of necessary equipment and quickly loaded the helicopter with the required resources.

We appointed a ground team of staff who maintained contact with the helicopter rescue team via walkie talkie and sent a team of experienced helicopter pilots and medically trained mountain rescue team members to rescue the injured climber from the mountainside. We used tools such as a winch and stretcher to safely remove the climber and return her to our Mountain Rescue Base for further medical assessment. It was touch and go as the wind and the snowstorm blew our rescue team around in the air but, by the skin of their teeth, they managed to return her safely to the ground.

Back at the base, our team of medical experts assessed the patient and decided her leg injury was severe and she needed to be transported to the local hospital for further treatment immediately. ​

Here, we ended the Mantle but the climber's life was still in the balance at this point.

I therefore asked the children to consider how they imagined the story would end. In small groups I asked them to imagine the climber 5 years down the line (5 years after the accident had occurred). What would she be doing? Who would she be with? How was her health?

The children were asked to freeze frame a photograph showing their ending and one group at a time they explained what had happened to the climber in their story:

The climber had to have her leg amputated but she survived the accident and made a full recovery (minus one limb). As a thank you to the two mountain rescue medical team members, who saved her life on the mountainside, she takes them to a football match every year. Here they are at Wembley, watching a cup final together.

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The climber survived, but had one leg amputated as a result of the accident. After this, her mental health suffered and she became depressed. Two of the mountain rescue team members kept in touch with her and still visit her regularly to check in and make sure she is coping. They've helped her to overcome her depression.

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After the rescue, things took a turn for the worse and the climber ended up in a coma. Five years down the line she has woken from her coma but still has to have regular medical treatment to keep her alive.

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The climber survived but her leg injury was so severe that they could not save it and had to amputate one leg. Five years later, she is fundraising for the Mountain rescue and Air Ambulance teams with all of her family members (including her granny) who are all so grateful to the rescue teams for saving her and giving them this precious time with her.

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