The North Dartmoor Search and Rescue Team (NDSART) has recently invested in an innovative scheme to store rescue stretchers in order to improve safety for the volunteer rescuers.

Mountain rescuers will no longer need to climb onto the roof of the rescue vehicles, where the stretchers are stored, when the need a stretcher.

They will instead be able to bring down a stretchers while standing on the ground using the ULTILoader, a ladder-loading device. It works as a roof-mounted tray which can be pulled out and tilted down to ground level.

NDSART’s chairman James Watts said: “The ULTILoader has revolutionised how we use our Land Rovers and stretchers. This new solution is easier to use, allowing individuals to unload a stretcher off the roof with one hand. We won't have [to have] team members on the roof of the vehicle in cold, wet and windy conditions, often in the dark. To unload or load the stretcher previously required up to three people, but now it can be done safely by one person at ground level in thirty seconds.

“There’s no more climbing up a tiny metal ladder and untying a stretcher from a roof rack and waiting for two or three team members below to unload the stretcher too.

“The added benefit is the weight on the Land Rovers; we’ve removed a substantial amount from the roofs, which has lowered the centre of gravity, making the vehicles nicer to drive when travelling around Devon and Dartmoor’s narrow tracks.”

The ULTILoader will further improve safety by removing the need to tie down stretchers in poor weather conditions, as the device will lock the stretcher in place.

This is the first time the ULTILoader has been used for such a purpose and the mountain rescue group plans to install the device on all its vehicles in the future.