VISITORS to Coate Water on Saturday were greeted by a car park packed with emergency service vehicles.

Police officers had arrived at the popular park at around 10am following reports of a missing 46-year-old man. They called in the assistance of Wiltshire Search and Rescue (WILSAR) who soon arrived on scene.

The man’s partner had discovered a suicide note, his car had been found in the car park, an empty packet of Tramadol and a vodka bottle on the seat - the man had a history of depression and the clock was ticking to find him safe and well.

But the call was not real, nor in fact was the man himself - it was merely the scenario for Exercise Bulrush, the biggest missing person exercise to be staged in more than a decade.

Volunteer teams from WILSAR - trained in search techniques, navigation, first aid and more - set about exploring the park, focusing on the banks and woodland areas.

Specialist water teams inflated boats and donned protective gear to take to the lake alongside colleagues from the fire service.

As morning moved into afternoon the search intensified with resources pouring in from as far afield as Hampshire and Berkshire to assist.

Watching it all was the Chief Constable of Wiltshire Police, Mike Veale.

“This is a fantastic example of collaborative and partnership working,” he said.

“The blue light services working hand in glove across agencies but most impressively, with Wiltshire Search and Rescue and other search and rescue teams from across the country.

“The volunteers who make up the teams have my absolute admiration, not just because of their obvious dedication and commitment but also because of the level of sophistication and skill that they bring to help us find vulnerable people, missing people, and people in crisis.”

While the teams scoured the park, Red Cross volunteers provided compassionate care to the missing man’s ‘wife’ and members of Wessex 4x4 response set up tents to help keep teams fuelled and hydrated.

Shortly after 3pm there was a breakthrough, a waterborne team from Berkshire Lowland Rescue came across a man, represented by a mannequin, caught in the reeds a few yards out from the water’s edge.

Heavy and unconscious, the team moved him to the bank where, led by a team member who is a doctor in his professional life, they began urgent medical treatment.

The team worked constantly until paramedics could reach their position on the far side of the park, cycling in and out of performing chest compressions and operating a breathing mask.

A team of observers from the Great Western Hospital watched on, impressed by the medical skill and professionalism on show.

The team’s work at the side of the water ultimately meant the casualty could be kept alive to be transported to hospital where a team of waiting doctors and nurses continued the exercise to test their own responses.

For Adrian Sawyer, Chairman of Wiltshire Search and Rescue, Exercise Bulrush was well worth the months of organisation that went into it.

“The search and rescue teams are constantly training every single week,” he said. “But opportunities like this where we can have lots of different resources together in a training exercise means that we can stress test the system. We can make sure we’re able to communicate together, that our equipment works well.

“Where we’ve got search and rescue working alongside fire and rescue operating boats for example, they’re able to make sure that what we think will happen in theory does actually happen in reality.

“And if it doesn’t work the way we expect then we can adapt our training and our protocols to make sure that if this happens for real, we’ve got the best knowledge there to be dealing with it when lives really matter.”

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