The volunteer response team, Derbyshire 4×4, has been working overtime after the weekend’s bout of heavy snow and rain, rescuing emergency responders and saving stranded vehicles across the county.
The team has responded to more than 50 incidents in the past few days, a record number in such a short space of time for the three-year-old volunteer group. The responders help out in various ways, from transporting nurses to rural patients to helping emergency services reach locations they would otherwise be unable to reach.
Since the heavy snow and rainfall over the weekend, the 4X4 responders have been working long into the night, checking Peak District roads for those stuck and helping clear the way for police and East Midlands Ambulance Service.
This heavy snow and rain caused towns such as Buxton to be completely snowed in, with roads inaccessible to those without the necessary equipment – which is where Derbyshire 4×4 were able to help.
Sam Vincent, 31, a trustee and secretary of the group, said: “It’s been pretty mad. We have just ticked over 50 incidents this morning. We have done a huge amount of work with police and rescue vehicles, particularly around the Buxton area, which has basically been impassable for the past few days. Those calls out don’t include stuff we have dealt with on the way.
“We went and checked the passes in The Peaks on the night when it was really heavy and we could tell that we would have a heavy morning. The majority of it has been getting NHS staff to and from work, or getting them to local runs across Derbyshire such as kidney dialysis patients who need daily treatment.”
The volunteer group, founded three years ago, is a charitable cause made up of people with access to 4×4 rescue vehicles and some prior responder experience. Mr Vincent told Derbyshire Live that he had been helping with an incident until 2.30am over the weekend as the snow had caused a number of issues in the north of Derbyshire.
He continued: “There was a lot of media that went out that got people to avoid unnecessary travel, so people have been good at that this time round. We have had a really smooth operation going this time round and we are really happy with how this has gone.
“This is probably the busiest we have been but not the most amount of people we have helped at one time as we had a bigger operation with the flooding in previous years.”
Derbyshire 4×4 has released a video on their Facebook page warning motorists of how quickly the conditions of the roads in Derbyshire can change from clear roads to being completely unserviceable, leaving unsuspecting motorists caught out in rural locations.