‘Please help the walking wounded to the Col, over there,’ she said as gently as she could. She didn’t possess the calm manner of a trauma specialist but she gave it her best shot. She’d attended a few disaster sites in her time, but had never been in charge. Until they could evacuate the critically injured and those still clinging to life, she was running on adrenalin. She shouted into her radio and gave an update to the emergency response team that had taken charge of coordinating the rescue effort on the ground.

Her priority, after identifying who could be saved, was not counting the dead but stabilising the scene. It seemed callous but there was no point dealing with corpses when the living could still be saved. She began creating a human chain from the crash site to the Col, so the volunteers could pass items along when needed, and when the stretchers arrived, they could pass survivors too. There were two stretcher boxes in the area and the one at Mickledore was the closest. Two members of the first team at the site had headed off to collect its contents: stretchers, first aid kits and blankets. The new one at Sty Head was sturdier and larger but further away, and a team carrying its contents was almost at the Col. She’d liaised with the professionals present as soon as she and Johnny had reached the Col, and she received information via radio every couple of minutes and knew that several helicopters were nearby and ready to evacuate critical victims. Seventy-two MRT members were on their way up various routes, and would evacuate those stable enough to walk.

‘We need more than four surgeons,’ she shouted into her radio. A commander at an emergency response pod in Keswick had been appointed and was coordinating the emergency services.

‘I’m sending as many as I can get up there.’

She knew they’d try their best, and she knew it wouldn’t be enough. Many would die up here tonight. She watched as the man who’d been pulled from the wreckage was administered CPR by the doctor she’d met briefly. Johnny had gone to help others. The whole scene chilled her soul. Then she heard the familiar shouts of command from MRTs and saw groups of climbers emerge from the fog, which had descended once more. Their red and blue clothes were distinctly welcome at that moment, and she ran across to the Col to give a situational report. If there was one priority for scene stabilisation it was that one person needed to call the shots, otherwise time would be lost, confusion would rule, and people would die.