An emergency response team on Millport held a practice emergency exercise recently on the west of the island.

The exercise involved a mock bus accident and how the island voluntary Emergency Support Team responded.

The event has been three month in the planning, and was perfectly timed to coincide with “Ready Scotland” and the inaugural Resilience Week held nationally last month.

Speaking to the 'News', Co-ordinator Bob Campbell of the emergency response team said: "We were mobilised to practice how to deal with such an accident, and most importantly how we would deal with the walking wounded.

"In this event there were 15 casualties who were brought to the Garrison House ‘drop-in centre’ by the Elderly Forum community bus.

"All casualties were registered, and then informed via sealed envelopes what there injures were as part of the enactment of the incident. The team then had to respond and deal with this scenario."

Tea, coffee and sticky buns were appreciated by all the casualties and served by Cumbrae Community Development Company board director Christine MacCulloch.

The company would like to thank the Cumbrae Emergency Support Team members, the Elderly Forum and Aged Concern; and all volunteers for their community service.

The Garrison House Drop-In Centre is made available for Cumbrae Emergency Support Team for emergencies and can house up to 30 people in the event of flooding, fire and ‘Act of God’ where residents and visitors are not able to stay in their homes. In the event of a larger emergency, the DA Hall would be used.

Mr Campbell added: "We started the process of obtaining equipment over three years ago, and would again like to thank CCDC, Kelburn Wind Farm, Hunterson Community Fund and SSE for their ongoing support and grants. "

The support team also showed visitors the equipment that they hold which includes camp beds, sleeping bags, gas cookers, individual flasks, torches, space blankets and bed rolls for field incidents, first aid kits, first aid training equipment (adult and children) and gloves etc; and most importantly tea urns.

Support team personnel kit to date is commercial quality high vis-jackets, hard hats, head torches, life jackets, industrial gloves and identification cards.

Most critically, the Cumbrae Emergency Support Team also hold a defibrillator and training defibrillator kindly supplied by North Ayrshire Council; which the assistance from Councilor Alan Hill.

Cumbrae Emergency Support Team are still seeking volunteers; any interested persons, please contact Bob on 07930 115513.