A Day in the Life of a Hart (Hazardous Area Response Team)

SouthWest Ambulance Service Trust HART – Hazardous Area Response Team

The Club was given a very informative and at times frankly terrifying talk about the work of the SWAST HART team and their extraordinary work by longstanding team member David Thorpe. David claims to be the oldest serving member of HART teams – of which there are 15 units in England, one in Wales and two affiliated SORT Units in Scotland.

David has had a fascinating journey getting to be a member of these very highly qualified and resourceful teams serving 23 years in the Armed Forces, then doing Nursing Training and working in Gloucester A+E / Medical assessment Unit and then 19 years as an Paramedic with the Ambulance Service.

During his presentation he explained and illustrated the amazing things that these highly specialised HART units do. All the major emergencies and really difficult inaccessible and frankly horribly dangerous places that they venture into, on top of, under and through to attend to and rescue injured people. The list of hazards they are trained to cope with cover every emergency imaginable and they use highly specialised equipment, vehicles and apparatus with great skill and expertise.

Club members were slightly overcome by the enormous list of acronyms applied to all the various risks and protocols that David and colleague have to follow – a real ‘alphabet soup’ – but they just illustrated how much there is to learn and to know how to deal with.

This is clearly a job for ‘adrenaline junkies’ but also highly trained, fit and fearless  men and women. We are all very lucky that there are these teams rapidly and efficiently available to our communities and us should we ever get involved in any of the disasters –natural and manmade – that David told us about.

Charles Buckley