Mountain rescue expert from Morpeth to speak at international conference

Pete Roberts, from Morpeth, recently stood down as an operational member of the Northumberland National Park Mountain Rescue Team (NNPMRT) after 50 years’ service.

He is speaking at Iceland’s bi-annual ‘Search and Rescue (SAR)’ conference on Friday, October 12.

Covering concepts developed in Northumberland, Pete will educate his audience on best practices within international search and rescue.

Pete was previously a team leader with extensive experience in SAR activities. He now enjoys educating the volunteer SAR community via his role with The Centre for Search Rescue (TCSR).

A registered charity co-founded by Pete in 1997, TCSR is dedicated to researching fresh ideas in the field of missing persons.

During his talk, Pete will reflect on his half century in mountain rescue, highlighting some of the key developments that have been authored by TCSR.

He will speak on how mountain rescue teams respond to a police call for help in what they term ‘The Initial Response’. In this period it is crucial to get things right and a speedy response is essential.

In the UK, rescue teams currently manage a SAR incident by using a generic problem-solving process that was developed in Northumberland. These tactics and techniques used to search for missing persons were created in collaboration with NNPMRT.

Crucial to any search is to look in the correct location with the right resources. This simple yet effective concept will be one of the focal points of Pete’s talk in Iceland. He will also discuss a missing person behavioural database which is in development.