The most common incidents tend to be call-outs to deal with people who have fallen resulting in lower leg fractures, wrist fractures and back injuries. The more serious injuries can include neck and pelvis fractures from falls from mountain bikes and horses. We spend time looking for walkers who have become disorientated, perhaps in poor weather conditions, and looking for high-risk or vulnerable people including those suffering with dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease. Sadly, sometimes we are called open to recover the bodies of people who have died.

In addition to our traditional mountain rescue activities we have been increasingly asked to respond to water and flood rescue incidents in our area and further afield. The team spent three days helping with the 2015 floods in York where we rescued over one hundred people and animals during the first night as the water levels rose. More recently we have supported local residents cope with tidal surges on the North Yorkshire coast, have assisted the Police to recover bodies from local rivers and we are always on standby to assist with local and regional flooding events. In recent years we have been on standby at various times to assist with flooding locally and across the region and to assist motorists stranded due to snow.

A call-out is only recorded when Team members are en route to the scene or to our Base to collect vehicles. If we are stood-down before anyone leaves their home or workplace etc we do not class that as a ‘call-out’.

Between 2013 & 2024 we responded to 665 incidents where our specialist skills, equipment or knowledge were needed to help local people and visitors.

Some incidents do not involve a deployment, for example being on standby or where our knowledge and expertise are used to help the Police or other agencies. When we do need to deploy we tend to average around 57 call-outs per year.