LAST week mountain rescue volunteers from across England and Wales contributed an estimated 9,250 man hours to the search for April Jones in Machynlleth reports ANNABEL HUGHES.
Among them were twenty members of Abergavenny-based Longtown Mountain Rescue, including Caroline Moreton and her search dog Keeper from Blaenavon .
"We received the callout from Dyfed Powys Police on Tuesday morning for a 'missing person' search involving a child in an area just within our patch. We had no idea of the scale of the operation that was going to unfold," said spokesman Luke Rake.
Team members have wide-ranging experience of major incidents. What was unfamiliar was the level of local involvement and the unprecedented media coverage.
There was also the fact that all their efforts proved in vain.
"Normally we're tasked to find people who have hurt themselves and to get them down off the mountain into an ambulance. Even when the outcome of a search is not good we can still get closure.
"We were hoping to find April. Obviously, like paramedics, we're there to do a job and we take a professional approach but the atmosphere throughout this search was highly charged.
"Many team members are parents themselves and it was impossible not to feel empathy with her family."
Initially their task was to help coordinate the efforts of local volunteer searchers, 'which came as a bit of a surprise', and to search around the residential areas of Machynlleth.
But the scale of the operation quickly increased and mountain rescue teams and search dogs were brought in from all over Wales and across the UK.
Throughout the week and over the weekend 24 specialist mountain, cave, water and dog teams worked through a systematic search plan - with experienced search managers and administrators co-ordinating the efforts of, on average, 200 searchers per day.
Almost all the work was in remote and inaccessible areas such as forestry, moorland, rivers and quarry workings, and was undertaken in atrocious weather conditions.
Members of Longtown MR are drawn from Monmouthshire, Gwent and Herefordshire and come from a wide range of backgrounds including doctors, teachers and estate agents.
Luke, who is Vice Principal of Hartpury College, Gloucester, says his reasons for volunteering are fairly typical.
"I grew up on Dartmoor, where I was always walking and climbing and I wanted to put something back into the things I love," he said.
What may not be widely known is that mountain rescue teams are funded almost entirely by public donations and the highly-trained volunteers don't even receive out-of-pocket expenses.
Most have full-time jobs and rely heavily on the support of not only their wives, husbands, partners and children but also their employers.
"One colleague drove up to Machynlleth after work on Wednesday, searched for seven hours in pouring rain then drove home and went to work the next day," said Luke.
While the focus of the whole nation was on Machynlleth the mountain rescue teams involved in the search were still on standby to deal with other emergencies.
Part of the Longtown team, for example, was diverted to rescue a walker lost in the Black Mountains.
The middle aged man from Bronllys called the emergency services when he became disorientated in heavy rain and low cloud.
Team leader Mark Nicholls said, "The gentleman ended up spending the night on the mountain and didn't know where he was.
"From the details he was able to give us of the surrounding landscape we were able to work out his location and, after a short search, found him near Gospel Pass - cold, wet and very tired but otherwise unhurt."
Longtown MR's involvement in the extraordinary events at Machynlleth ended last weekend.
After the customary debriefing it was 'business as usual' for the team, with a day of swift water training in one of the county's swollen rivers.
For more information go to http://www.longtownmrt.org.uk">www.longtownmrt.org.uk