The volunteer angels of the Alpine Rescue. In Umbria one operation a day

“Estote wallpaper”: be ready. And the operators of the National Alpine and Speleological Rescue Corps are ready and are available 24 hours a day. This year the Corps celebrates…

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“Estote wallpaper”: be ready. And the operators of the National Alpine and Speleological Rescue Corps are ready and are 24 hours a day. This year the Corps celebrates its first 70 years and the occasion also allowed us to take stock of the activity that has been carried out in Umbria since Sasu, the regional service for Umbria of the Corps led by president Matteo Moriconi. The data relating to 2023 show a total of 277 interventions carried out in the Green Heart of Italy which corresponds to 2.2% of the national figure. The numerical average tells of 23 interventions per month which obviously have small numbers in some phases of the year and drops in others. The action of the Alpine and Speleological Rescue of Umbria, Sasu, is consequently linked to seasonality. In this phase of the year, for example, the greatest concentration from an operational point of view concerns the people involved in the collection of mushrooms and asparagus.

THE POINT

“Our activity – explains President Moriconi – is based on volunteering. In Umbria we are around a hundred operators with teams located in Terni, Spoleto, Foligno, Perugia and Città di Castello and other operators ready in the mountain area. We are organised, as is the case for the National Corps, in operating and healthcare technicians and we have the 118 activation times. The scope of intervention is that of technical-healthcare rescues and not in mountain environments, in caves and in inaccessible environments”. Operation is that of the regional territory but often also operates in a national and international context. The last relevant interventions date back to last week and involved, once the activation was received from the operations center technician of the Alpine and Speleological Rescue when the teams were sent to the Marmore Waterfall Park for a hiker who fell ill. And then there was the intervention of the Sasu technicians in Assisi to provide aid to an asparagus picker who was seen falling into the Tescio river by some passers-by. The Nibbio 01 regional air ambulance also arrived on site. In that context, after the stabilization operations carried out with the support of 118, the patient was winched aboard the helicopter and transported to the Perugia hospital.

HISTORY

The Alpine and Speleological Rescue of Umbria was officially born on 5 September 1966. But before that date Umbria had already been marked by a series of complex interventions. “In the mid-1950s – tells the story of Sasu – on a terrible winter day, all the CAI volunteers capable of intervening were called to participate in the search for a plane reported missing in Valnerina. At the beginning of the 60s in Terni a team of speleologists began to organize themselves for cave emergencies. On 7 February 1965, a young Roman girl was injured when she fell about ten meters down a vertical section in the Chiocchio cave, near Spoleto”. Two examples that explain the complexities that had to be faced in Umbria at the time, at a time when techniques and methods, especially speleological ones, were known to only a very few people among those who attended. From that moment on, painstaking work began aimed at training operators which led to the birth of the regional service of the National Alpine and Speleological Rescue body, Sasu. “We do not teach – recalls the president of Sasu Matteo Moriconi – how to go to the mountains, but how to help in the mountains. In Central 118 there is one of our technicians who provides support for the relevant activities and we also have an air rescue technician at the Foligno base”. Those who join the Alpine Rescue, therefore, already know how to move in the mountains, know the rules, behaviors and the right equipment and equipment to bring with them. And thanks to these skills, which are the essence of making a difference and saving one or more people, whether in an inaccessible place or in a cave, it is essential. Providing rescue, therefore, is the keystone where the operator is the one who, in a team context, knows what his task is and must complete it according to a foreseen protocol and with well-tested techniques. All this also thanks to the need to have, on the part of those who request Sasu’s entry into action, precise information which has the aim of making the intervention targeted and fast.

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