A TYNEDALE mountain rescue worker shared his expertise at an international conference in Iceland last week.

Carl Hamilton (pictured), from Ridsdale, is a member of the Northumberland National Park Mountain Rescue Team.

And alongside fellow team member, Pete Roberts from Rothbury, he spoke at Iceland’s bi-annual search and rescue conference last weekend.

Carl focused on techniques and tactics for night-time search and rescue missions.

Around 60 per cent of calls for help to mountain rescue teams come between 4pm and 10pm, so night-searching skills are essential.

The duo, both long-standing members of the mountain rescue team, also taught a day-long course on how they manage a search and rescue incident using a problem solving process they developed in Northumberland.

Pete and Carl are both former team leaders of NNPMRT and have extensive experience and expertise in search and rescue.

Carl has been a member for over 30 years and, alongside Pete, was involved in the major search operations in the wake of the Lockerbie air disaster.

In 1997, they formed The Centre for Search Research (TCSR) as a registered charity to allow them to continue to research into aspects of search and rescue.

The work Pete and Carl do for TCSR, and as members of NNPMRT, is voluntary and their published research on search and rescue is available via: www.searchresearch.org.uk.