Grimpday, one of the most prestigious rope rescue competitions in the world, is held every year in the beautiful city of Namur in Belgium. Previously, there were Hungarian participants in 2011, where Richárd Horváth and Csaba Császár, members of the Hungarian Cave Rescue Service (BMSZ), strengthened the team of the Budapest Fire Brigade.

In this year's competition, the HUNOR team was also able to participate from Hungary. Hunor is the organization of professional heavy search and rescue, capable of being deployed under special circumstances under the National Directorate General for Disaster Management of the Ministry of Interior.

4 of the members of the starting team are active members of the Hungarian Cave Rescue Service in civil life. The competition featured 30 rescue teams from 13 countries from 4 continents, thus team members were very honored to participate.

The Ultrabalaton running race was held on the 11-13 May. Our team of four rescue members participated in the event. Lajos Sass, Kilián Huber, Péter Kunisch and Péter Gonda ran in the colours of the Hungarian Cave Rescue Service. This year, the team was escorted by a driver, Zoltán Kiss, also a team member of the rescue service.

The weather was rather moody, the temperature was around 3-4C in the early morning, which was followed by a 25-degree heat.  The 220 kms’ distance race had to be finished in a storm during night. The first runner of the team started at 6:35 a.m. on Saturday and the last arrived at 2:31 a.m. on Sunday in the finish area.

The long race was exhaustive enough and it was interspersed with minor cramps and unsettled stomach.

It has become a tradition that the Duna-Ipoly National Park celebrates the Earth Day together with other non-governmental organizations and this year was no exception to this tradition. The event has attracted and called outdoors many families again. The Hungarian Cave Rescue Service was happy to join to it. As usual, we made all the preparations for the cave rescue demonstration early Saturday afternoon in the territory of the quarry, where the visitors of the Pál-völgyi barlang (Paul Valley Cave) curiously spotted the sky as they reached to the exit.

Sunday event was visited by many people and fortunately the raining waited until the end of the day. We demonstrated how we carry the stretcher together in the event of an accident and the stretcher could also be tested by the visitors at our stand. 

Shortly after 16:00 on May 1 2019, we received a request that a 25 year old lady had suffered an ankle injury over Pilisborosjenő on the side of Kevély-hill. It was a beautiful spring day and a Hungarian bank holiday, so many went on a trip to Pilis.

Starting from Pilisborosjenő, the young people hiked up to Nagy-Kevély, then came back down the red square tourist sign. The terrain is not easy here on the hiking trail, it leads between dusty dolomite gravel and more or less rocky terrain stairs, in many places you can only hike in narrow passages, elsewhere vegetation hanging on the road and fallen trees make the terrain difficult.

They were only a little more than a kilometer from the village border when the injury occurred while taking a big step.

On the evening of April 7, 2019, the Hungarian Cave Rescue Organization rescued a lost group from the Mátyáshegyi cave. Three young people started the cave-tour with an old caver guide at noon.

The tour began on the easy and popular “Great Circle” cave section, later they aimed at the underground lake that forms the deepest point of the cave.  However they got lost in the labyrinth part of the way to the lake, and they could not find the passage neither down to the lake or up that could be got through safely by this group.

According to Hungarian caving customs, all hiking groups have a surface watch, which alerts the cave rescuers if the group fails to reach the surface.

March 1 is International Civil Protection Day. This year, the National Directorate General for Disaster Management thanked the Hungarian Cave Rescue Service for helping and supporting their civil protection efforts. At the ceremony, we heard Colonel Péter Jackovics' assessment of today's natural hazards and the protection against them.

Representatives of several NGOs received recognition at the event. This year, the acclaimed diploma and souvenir of Major General Dr. Zoltán Góra was received by our member Márton Kovács. We thank the recognition and hope that our relationship with Disaster Management staff, which has been developing so far, will continue to be successful in the future.

Photo: András Jóri