The Guvnor
27th Aug 2001, 14:03
Good work all - from today's Telegraph
Scots pupils' Himalayan alert reaches RAF Kinloss
(Filed: 27/08/2001)
AN emergency distress call from a party of Scottish teenagers high in the Himalayas was answered by a Scottish air force base 7,000 miles away.
The alert was raised by an RAF serviceman leading the 20 Glasgow students on a trek after two girls became unwell.
His SOS was picked up at RAF Kinloss in Moray, where Sgt Stuart Brumpton was formerly based. Within an hour of the distress call going out, an Indian helicopter was trying to reach the scene.
Sgt Brumpton, 40, was leading the Jordanhill School expedition through the remote Himachal Pradesh region of India at an altitude of more than 13,500ft when the teenage girls became ill.
Chloe Robertson, 18, came down with a gut infection and Kathleen Griffiths, 17, was hit by altitude sickness while at least two days' travel from the nearest road.
Sgt Brumpton, now a weapons technician at RAF
Lossiemouth, triggered a high-tech electronic
position-indicating radio beacon. Its signal was relayed by satellite and picked up by the control centre at RAF Kinloss.
The signal contained information about who had the beacon, and their exact location. The RAF contacted a 24-hour emergency operations room of the organisers of the expedition, World Challenge in London, after the alert.
They in turn got in touch with an agent in the Indian town of Manali, who arranged for a rescue helicopter to go to the party - just over an hour after Sgt Brumpton switched on the beacon.
Sgt Brumpton said at the weekend: "We were very high up in the Indian Himalayas. The terrain in some ways was like rugged Scotland with snow-capped peaks and sharper points.
"The girls became ill and I was concerned that they would become dehydrated. I gave antibiotics but those failed to work. We were two days away from a road and even from there it was 10 hours by jeep from the nearest hospital.
"Kathleen was ill with altitude sickness and being sick all the time, but Chloe was more seriously ill with the infection. World Challenge knew where to send help. However monsoon rain meant the helicopter couldn't get to us. So we trekked back, with the two ill girls on packhorses."
After a 42-hour hike and overnight camp the group met a rescue party in an off-road vehicle. The helicopter arrived shortly afterwards and flew the girls to hospital. Both made a good recovery.
Scots pupils' Himalayan alert reaches RAF Kinloss
(Filed: 27/08/2001)
AN emergency distress call from a party of Scottish teenagers high in the Himalayas was answered by a Scottish air force base 7,000 miles away.
The alert was raised by an RAF serviceman leading the 20 Glasgow students on a trek after two girls became unwell.
His SOS was picked up at RAF Kinloss in Moray, where Sgt Stuart Brumpton was formerly based. Within an hour of the distress call going out, an Indian helicopter was trying to reach the scene.
Sgt Brumpton, 40, was leading the Jordanhill School expedition through the remote Himachal Pradesh region of India at an altitude of more than 13,500ft when the teenage girls became ill.
Chloe Robertson, 18, came down with a gut infection and Kathleen Griffiths, 17, was hit by altitude sickness while at least two days' travel from the nearest road.
Sgt Brumpton, now a weapons technician at RAF
Lossiemouth, triggered a high-tech electronic
position-indicating radio beacon. Its signal was relayed by satellite and picked up by the control centre at RAF Kinloss.
The signal contained information about who had the beacon, and their exact location. The RAF contacted a 24-hour emergency operations room of the organisers of the expedition, World Challenge in London, after the alert.
They in turn got in touch with an agent in the Indian town of Manali, who arranged for a rescue helicopter to go to the party - just over an hour after Sgt Brumpton switched on the beacon.
Sgt Brumpton said at the weekend: "We were very high up in the Indian Himalayas. The terrain in some ways was like rugged Scotland with snow-capped peaks and sharper points.
"The girls became ill and I was concerned that they would become dehydrated. I gave antibiotics but those failed to work. We were two days away from a road and even from there it was 10 hours by jeep from the nearest hospital.
"Kathleen was ill with altitude sickness and being sick all the time, but Chloe was more seriously ill with the infection. World Challenge knew where to send help. However monsoon rain meant the helicopter couldn't get to us. So we trekked back, with the two ill girls on packhorses."
After a 42-hour hike and overnight camp the group met a rescue party in an off-road vehicle. The helicopter arrived shortly afterwards and flew the girls to hospital. Both made a good recovery.