Incident at Agen Allwedd, Saturday 17th February, 2008.

Sunday 17th Feb., 6 cavers from WSG overdue on a clockwise Grand Circle trip in Agen Allwedd.

The designated callout time was midnight but the party had indicated that they expected to be back at WSG by 20.00 on Sat.

At 00.30 a call was received direct from cavers at WSG hut concerned that a 999 call at 22.00 Sat. asking for cave rescue had apparently not been acted upon.

No callout had been received from the Police by GCRT or WBCRT, (for reasons as yet not clear but will be investigated),

The caller was given the contact details for a GCRT warden who then phoned the Police, obtained an incident number and asked WBCRT for assistance.

The WBCRT, already alerted by the call from WSG, had already taken the first call out procedures and assistance was en-route very quickly.

On site it was established that the overdue party had been seen at 16.00 Sat. by another party doing an anticlockwise GC trip. The overdue party were in good spirits when seen.

The plan for the initial search was designed around setting blocking points in the cave and the searching of the route that remained for the overdue party to complete, since they were seen by the Southern Stream and Mainstream junction. It was decided, due to past experience of Heyphone comms at Llangattock, to lay hard wire from Whitewalls to two control points within the cave with a checkpoint at the entrance.

By 03.55, some 50 cave rescue team members were variously committed to search and comms, on standby at Whitewalls. Other members were on standby at Penwyllt.

The usual wait then ensued. At 04.45, a call from the cave indicated that the overdue party had been contacted and were tired but capable of continuing out. One member of the party had sustained a hamstring strain shortly after passing the other party and had some route finding difficulties. The injury also meant that they were moving slowly.

By 06.00 all of the overdue party and the rescue teams had returned to Whitewalls. The Police were informed the incident was over when the Land Rover had returned to Penwyllt.

No WBCRT equipment faults or shortages were noted.

The blocking and search plan and comms worked very well and would have 'caught' the party if they had re-traced their route. Plans for a search of the Turkey Pool/Coal Cellar area were in hand if they had not been found after the initial search and the callout structured to allow fresh troops if an extended search or stretcher carry had been required.

At the short de-brief following, the only item of note was the mention of not putting in a rapid response before comms. It was explained that experience had shown that such a move could lead to the rapid response party being out of contact for several hours - beyond re-call or re-deployment, plus the benefit of delivering a co-ordinated search response which took a little time to design.

No Police or other statutory service assistance was required.

Thanks from WSG were received on Sunday morning.

This incident bears remarkable similarities to the SUSS incident a year ago.

WBCRT