A VOLUNTARY ORGANIZATION

Support is received from the whole of the caving community, both in terms of practical assistance and finance.
Injuries, even relatively minor ones become a much more serious matter when they occur underground.
Medical assessment and immediate care are complicated by the hostile cave environment - the total darkness, cold, wet and mud compound the severity of the situation.
Add to this the practical problems of evacuating an immobilised casualty from a confined and arduous situation and you have a serious undertaking.
Formed in 1936, MRO is the second oldest cave rescue organization in the world.
One of sixteen cave rescue teams in the British Isles, MRO is responsible for rescues from caves and disused stone mines in the Bristol area, Somerset, Wiltshire & Dorset. Acting on behalf of the Police, MRO are responsible for all aspects of the operation underground, from marshalling the required cavers, sourcing and deploying specialist equipment through to control and coordination of the rescue.
After assessment, First Aid and stabilization the hard physical work and technical difficulties of the evacuation begin.
The logistics of having the right equipment and the right number of rescuers in the right place at the right time, in safety, in an exposed, sometimes wet, sometimes claustrophobic, sometimes vertical, sometimes unstable environment, whilst continually monitoring and caring for the casualty mean that an evacuation may take many hours.

CAVERS WHO RESCUE CAVERS

Self-help with voluntary service is a strong and enduring ethic amongst Mendip cavers - a tradition that has kept MRO at the forefront of technical developments and techniques since its formation.
Whilst acting on behalf of the Police, MRO is entirely self-financed and does not call upon Local or National Funds.
MRO holds large amounts of highly specialized and sophisticated equipment. It operates its own radio net on the national Land Search and Rescue frequency and has equipment for direct radio communication between the surface and the incident location underground.
Much of this equipment is expensive but its purchase is funded entirely by cavers who also carry out all the maintenance.
MRO maintains strong links with other cave rescue teams through the British Cave Rescue Council, together with the Mountain Rescue Council and other groups throughout the world.
From 1936 to 2003 the Mendip Rescue Organization has attended over 400 call-outs and rescued over 800 people.
Recently the MRO's name has been changed to Mendip Cave Rescue, MCR