Fleetwood Coastguard gets three new 'mud techs'

Three people successfully completed their mud technician training on Saturday.

A coastguard spokesman said: "It was a busy busy day for the team, as part of our training we have to regularly revalidate our skills through training and passing coastguard requirements to stay as a rescue team.

"Each of our team has to pass the requirements for mud rescue.

"There are three levels of mud rescue standards: awareness - an understanding of the kit and how it’s used; operations - setting up hold fasts and mud rescue equipment such as the winches, mud lances and pressuring the water tanks; mud technicians - accessing the casualty through the mud while pulling stretchers full of rescue equipment and using the equipment to rescue the casualty while monitoring the medical condition of the casualty.

"It’s considered that mud technician work is the most strenuous and physically demanding of all rescue roles.

"And after a full day of training (in very unseasonable stormy weather for August) we’ve now got three extra mud techs and also two additional officers in charge to enable us to manage the extremely high number of incidents we are attending at the moment."