The doughty men and women of Keswick mountain rescue are well used to helping walkers who have lost their way on the Lake District fells. But at the weekend they had to assist a group who had also lost their minds.
Just after noon on Saturday, the team were called to the Stoneycroft, Newlands and Seathwaite area of the national park following reports that a group of young men were in trouble after taking magic mushrooms.
Two in the group, including the designated driver, were feeling unwell, and several walkers had rung mountain rescue to express their concern.
Eleven volunteers were dispatched to meet the disoriented party and walk them down the fell, where the team medic gave them advice “regarding the timing of their onward travel” – in other words, how long it would take before the mushrooms were out of the driver’s system.
It was Keswick mountain rescue’s 24th rescue of 2023 and took two hours.
Mountain Rescue England and Wales, which is funded entirely by donations, prides itself on not judging those it helps, regardless of the cause of their distress.
Its report of the callout says simply: “A number of calls were received via passersby, who had come across a group of young adult males who had taken magic mushrooms. Two in the group were feeling unwell, including the driver in the party. The casualties were walked down and given advice by the team medic regarding the timing of their onward travel.”
During one of the Covid lockdowns in February 2021, a mountain rescue volunteer was paralysed after falling 150 metres during a callout to two people camping above Kirkstone Pass in the Lake District.
Chris Lewis, 60, a retired engineer and volunteer with Patterdale mountain rescue, sustained life-changing spinal injuries and multiple facial fractures when he went to help the two campers from Liverpool and Leicester after one fell ill, believing he was having a heart attack. It was pitch black and cold enough that the team’s oxygen cylinders froze when Lewis slipped and fell.
The original casualty was taken to hospital, where he quickly recovered. He and his companion were fined £200 for breaking coronavirus restrictions. Lewis will be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. More than £886,000 was raised to help him and his family.
Mountain rescue team members are on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to rescue climbers from precipitous crags, reunite lost walkers with their friends and ensure injured and sick casualties are taken to hospital.
They also regularly help search for missing children and vulnerable adults, on and off the hills, while administering sympathetic support to their families. They search riverbanks and swift water, and wade chest-deep through flooded urban streets helping devastated homeowners.
There were just four days in 2022 when teams were not called out in England and Wales.
