On Wednesday, March 15, the North Dartmoor search and rescue team was called out by police at 4pm to locate and recover a male who had become lost in the north eastern part of the moor.

The male had become lost in the mist and was without a map or compass, initially relying on sight of tors to navigate the moorland. He knew he was between two tors but the distance between was vast. Phone signal which allowed  search managers to talk to him and keep in contact. 

DART 51 (a team Land Rover) was deployed with a four-man-team and dog Jack to locate the man. Given the phone contact, the man was able to describe what was around him and fortunately had located a flag pole. Team members were able to work out roughly where he was from this information and deployed to the area. 

As the team made their way to the location, barks could be heard in the distance from dog Jack who had located a person, drawing his handler to the location and the man was located. The gentleman was assessed both on location and at the RV, by team doctor Ben. He was given the all clear and was able to be transported to the train station to make his way home. The entire extraction operation took an hour and a half from call to physical contact. 

The team encourages everyone to enjoy the moorland but do so by being #AdventureSmart. They ask that you ensure you bring a compass and a map when you go walking and have good knowledge on their use in order to combat rapidly changing weather on the moor.