{"id":649892,"date":"2025-12-23T07:09:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T07:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/649892\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T07:09:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T07:09:16","slug":"community-rescue-chief-sean-mccarry-praises-volunteers-dealing-with-up-to-three-callouts-per-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/649892\/","title":{"rendered":"Community rescue chief Sean McCarry praises volunteers dealing with up to three callouts per\u00a0day"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Community Rescue Service (CRS) is a charitable search and rescue organisation operated by volunteers and carries out lowland rescue operations in conjunction with the PSNI and other agencies.<\/p>\n

A recent post on the Facebook page of its Belfast branch described this past weekend as \u201crelentless\u201d, with volunteers mixing ongoing searches with new callouts, as well as finding time to carry out fundraising.<\/p>\n

\n

This time of year can be difficult for a lot of reasons<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

CRS regional commander for NI, Sean McCarry, said carrying out operations close to Christmas was \u201cvery poignant\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re quite busy at all times of the year, but Christmas is very poignant. We would have a steady enough situation throughout the year, particularly in Northern Ireland where the suicide rate is quite high,\u201d he told this newspaper.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are lots of reasons for that as we all know; I\u2019m not an expert on that side of it. What we are experts on is finding the people, trying to find them alive and getting them back.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are teams in all the different counties in England, but we would be the busiest lowland rescue team in the UK and Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sean<\/p>\n

Sean McCarry, regional commander of CRS Northern Ireland<\/p>\n

Mr McCarry added that while there\u2019s usually a slight increase in calls around the festive period, the service\u2019s level of callouts was high all year round.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say it\u2019s very slight. There\u2019s certainly not a decrease, but it\u2019s not a significant increase compared to other times of year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a relatively steady ongoing baseline that we\u2019re always working to, which is a number sometimes of at least two or maybe three searches a day.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom that, we can have peaks where we\u2019re ending up doing more than that every day for a period of a week or two weeks.<\/p>\n

“This time of year can be difficult for a lot of reasons; people sometimes are celebrating and have a great time, but there are also lots of people who find that they’ve lost loved ones, or they’re on their own, or they’re lonely.<\/p>\n

“It’s a good time of year to think about others, to try and look after them, but start off by looking after yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CRS is currently involved in a number of ongoing searches for Andrew Robinson<\/a> and Bryn Williams<\/a> in the Portadown and Groomsport areas respectively.<\/p>\n

\"Community<\/p>\n

Community Rescue Service’s Belfast branch described last weekend as “relentless”<\/p>\n

Police at the scene of an incident in north Belfast<\/p>\n

Mr Robinson has been missing since November 15, while Mr Williams\u2019 last contact with his family was on December 6.<\/p>\n

“The Portadown and Groomsport searches are ongoing searches planned with the police in detail,\u201d said Mr McCarry.<\/p>\n

“We’re working alongside our colleagues from Knock Bay Rescue, and there are other colleagues from SARDA out north, and a few other different search teams.<\/p>\n

“We thankfully have got equipment and expertise that allows us to search even when there’s no daylight. We would be starting some of our searches very early in the morning, and working through to the light leaves.<\/p>\n

“We know what we’re doing every day, every evening. We\u2019ll keep that pace up until we find the person or the police tell us they have a different plan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Community Rescue Service (CRS) is a charitable search and rescue organisation operated by volunteers and carries out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[2378,1300,1144,1610,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-649892","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-belfast","9":"tag-liam-tunney","10":"tag-northern-ireland","11":"tag-police-service-of-northern-ireland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115767632087474075","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}