Page 241 - Demo

237We had 2 more aircraft call outs that year and another the next year but I cannot recall much about them. I do remember being called out to search for a possible suicide. The Clevedon child abuse scandal had broken and one of the social workers was being really persecuted by the press to the extent that she could not cope any more. It was thought that she had gone to hang herself in a wood and so together with the Police and other search group we were given a stand of wood to search. The wood was very thick but we worked all the way through it and told the Police that we were totally confident that there was no one in it unless they were trying to evade. The police brought up a huge lorry as a command post and also fed us all. We were amazed to be given a very substantial meal followed by strawberries and cream. At the end of the day we all left apart from a young constable who was left with his car to guard the command post. The plan was that we would resume the search in the morning. I had decided that as it was such a large area that I would ask for a party of students to be released to help. However, in the morning the search was called off. It turned out that the poor woman had set off to kill herself and first decided to cut her wrists but could not do so. She then decided to climb up Captain Cook%u2019s monument and jump off but either could not get in or was scared of heights. She then decided to go into the wood and die. She had hidden from the searchers during the day although I doubt if she had been in our section of the wood. Once the searchers had all left she settled down to die of hyperthermia. She then worried that her body would not be found and so went into a clearing where her body would be found. In the middle of the night the constable sitting in his car got cold and started the engine to get the heater on. The woman was actually lying just in front of the car and when the engine started she thought she would get run over and leapt up. The constable suddenly saw this woman leap up directly in front of him and nearly died of a heart attack. However, he took her in and the incident ended.