Buxton Mountain Rescue Team is banking on your support

Buxton Mountain Rescue Team is appealing for votes so it can qualify as a finalist in Aviva Community Fund 2017.

Victory in the competition would enable the charity to buy protective equipment for their water rescue personnel.

Volunteer members of the team put in hundreds of hours alongside daily jobs to train so they can respond to the 999 call when members of the public need their services.

The team was formed in 1964 after an accident in which three Scouts died in a blizzard while attempting the 4 Inns Walk, a 50-mile hike over some of the Peak District’s most challenging terrain. Although they primarily rescue people (and animals) who are lost or injured in the hills; increasingly they are being asked to search and rescue people from floodwater, rivers, reservoirs and other areas of water.

Carina Humberstone, the team’ s training officer, said: “With £5000 we would be able to kit out six water rescue personnel with a heavy duty drysuit, a specialist buoyancy aid, helmet, throwline and belt. With six rescuers kitted out we will have two sections that could be deployed independently to search reservoirs and rivers; work in floodwater and within water, and when combined they would work as one unit to safely effect rescues within moving water.

Submit your vote before November 21 by visiting www.community-fund.aviva.co.uk/voting/project/view/17-2091