HART operative Hannah Mitchelmore is breaking boundaries as well as developing new skills to improve patient care and safety.

Hannah has just passed the final assessment to qualify as the first female Rope Rescue Operator Instructor in SECAmb.

Literal high points of the course included hanging in suspension underneath the Tamar Bridge in Plymouth and working at the top of a 120m high reservoir intake tower.

Based at Gatwick, Hannah was one of 18 women selected nationally for a Technical Rope Rescue programme aimed at increasing the number of female instructors in this essential field. She said she jumped at the chance to be involved, as women have been historically under-represented in technical rescue positions.

“Representation is so important – it helps to inspire the next generations coming through and for those already on the outskirts of rescue organisations to feel they can progress and improve themselves,” she said. “It is also important for our casualties that need rescuing to feel confident and comfortable with those who are rescuing them, and having a fully diverse rescue team helps foster an inclusive and safe environment.

“I feel very proud to have been selected as one of the five HART paramedics from the whole country, and hope that in completing the course, more women from SECAmb will feel empowered to apply for future opportunities and create positive changes in the technical rescue world,” she added.

A paramedic for 10 years, Hannah joined SECAmb’s Hazardous Area Response Team (HART) in 2018.

“We often get called to jobs where patients require rope systems to safely extricate or rescue them from a hazardous situation. Having the knowledge from this programme will increase my ability to apply rope rescue skills in various ways, and ultimately provide paramedic level care to patients more efficiently and safely.”

The HART team sees paramedics delivering clinical care to patients in hazardous environments, whether that involves working at height, in confined or unstable spaces or even water rescue.

“HART has always been my dream job as I love the combination of delivering clinical care alongside technical rescue skills,” said Hannah.

“HART provides so many opportunities for specialising in unusual or lesser seen areas of pre-hospital medicine, and I think it’s so important that no patient has care withheld due to responders not being trained to deal with a hazardous working environment.”