AQUA-SAC® came to the aid of the Upper Wharfedale Fell Rescue Association (UWFRA) on Sunday as we trialled our self-inflating sandbags in a cave rescue training exercise organised by UWFRA and the local Fire and Rescue Service.

AQUA-SAC® sandbags could easily be carried to the rescue scene in the remote Yorkshire Dales. Fifty self-inflating sandbags were used in two scenarios. Firstly, to divert a stream on the surface away from the flooded cave. Secondly, 25 AQUA-SAC® sandbags were easily deployed in the cramped semi flooded cave in order to create a bund. Once deployed, in minutes the fire service was able to set up a pump from the reservoir created using the AQUA-SAC® SOS bags.

The Upper Wharfedale Fell Rescue Association is one of many rescue teams that answers calls to provide help to people and animals in difficulties on the hills; in this case the Yorkshire Dales. It is unusual, though, in that it is one of the few teams that also provides aid to people in trouble in caves and potholes in this area.

Since its inception in 1948 the team has answered hundreds of calls and has always prided itself on being at the forefront of using innovative technology that may help bring about successful conclusions to the incidents it attends. Down the years this has seen it design and manufacture equipment especially for use in the trying conditions found underground. Also, it has kept an eye on what is available elsewhere.

Many of the cave rescues that occur are the result of flooding. Inevitably, this involves the damming and diversion of torrents of water rushing off the steep upland slopes into the caves and potholes before it is safe for a rescue party to enter. Usually this takes place at night, and can involve dozens of people digging diversion channels and filling and placing sandbags. It may also need the Fire and Rescue Service to attend with their pumps.

When the team heard about AQUA-SAC® they seemed too good to be true. Here, apparently, were bags that didn't require an army of people to fill them. Also, they were capable of being carried in quantity into a cave packed in a waterproof sack by one person. They had to be seen. Were they up to the hype?

Luckily, the team had been organising a joint exercise with the Fire Service to pump dry a length of cave passage that has a series of places normally full of water to the roof (sumps in cavers' language). The venue was to be Langstroth Cave and it would require building a dam within the cave to provide a suitable pool to accommodate the pump suction hose, as well as diversion of a stream on the surface. Older members of the team had carried out this operation several times in the past, including one sad occasion when three people had died trying to dive through the sumps without using diving equipment. This time it was to be a familiarisation exercise for new team members and Fire Service personnel.

The day dawned dry and bright and conditions were ideal - would the AQUA-SAC® be up to the job? Well, the answer to that is an unqualified yes. It did everything claimed for it. We were, perhaps, helped by having Simon Minto from Analox Environmental Technology Ltd with us to provide expert advice, but we are confident that left on our own we would still have been able to provide a good, watertight dam. The pumping operation was a great success and members of the Fire and Rescue Service who went into the cave to see for themselves what was happening down below were also very impressed with the AQUA-SAC®.

Will we be buying AQUA-SAC® to put on our shelves alongside our other equipment? Of course we will. The next time my phone rings at any time of the day or night, at any time of the year, and the police tell me that there is a flooding incident at a cave somewhere I shall have the knowledge that life may just have got a bit easier through having them.

Harry Long
Team Controller
Upper Wharfedale Fell Rescue Association