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Police officer recounts discovery of lost mountaineers in Eryri
Tindle News
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18/06/2025
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00:00
This story and these circumstances really are quite exceptional
00:04
and my thoughts and feelings are with the Kalaka Brookfield family as we
00:08
tell the public about this story. Mr David Brookfield came as an experienced walker
00:15
back into this beautiful area of the Ogwen Valley, intending to do really quite an amazing route
00:22
starting going up into the Karnevai from Llinogwen and the route would have been 15 kilometers long,
00:30
it was January 2024. Really nice weather actually but forecast to deteriorate later in the day
00:38
and his final summit which is behind me now would have been Penarol-Owen. Sadly on that day
00:46
something went wrong and he was lost on that night. Sadly we weren't able to find Mr Brookfield
00:53
during those first days of searching. The weather worsened, snow continued to fall after a few days
01:00
and the first couple of weeks we realised there was not any more that we could do from the ground.
01:04
In May 2024 the Coast Guard helicopter crews were flying through this valley on a training exercise
01:11
and one of the winchmen was looking out of a door or a window and suddenly spotted something,
01:20
caught his eye and something blue, light blue that really would stand out in this terrain and they
01:26
were really quite sure that what they found was sadly the remains of Mr Brookfield. So while we were
01:34
carrying out that investigation process one of the team members found a jacket and it was an older jacket,
01:40
one that seemed to have been there from really some time. But deep in the psyche and the memory
01:46
and the minds of this rescue team was one other person who'd been missing since 2012, this young man
01:53
who is Shane Kalako. Later that week I started looking at details of what Mr Kalako was wearing,
02:02
what he was driving and I was quite amazed to find that the jacket that we recovered when we were
02:09
recovering Brookfield was very similar to the jacket that Shane Kalako was wearing on the day he went missing
02:16
and the car key was similar to the car that he was driving. Suddenly we realised we may have a clue
02:23
as to where Shane may have been and he'd gone out walking in this incredible area, he had a plan,
02:30
he'd given information about where he intended to go but he never came back to his car and hadn't been seen since.
02:36
And incredibly within just a small number of days we had an answer and this key was the key to
02:44
Shane Kalako's car. The drone operator went up to that location and actually stood in the area where
02:50
we had the recovery operation from Brookfield and something quite incredible happened. Whilst he was
02:56
looking for somewhere to put the drone down to fly and start that survey, he noticed something on the
03:02
ground almost exactly where we were recovering Mr Brookfield and it was a piece of fabric under some
03:09
some brush and some twigs and the detritus that had washed down the gully and he just made a very
03:17
careful inspection of what he was looking at and quite incredibly realised that he'd actually
03:23
discovered the remains of Shane Kalako. What's really amazing about this story is that so many of the people on
03:29
the team on the team on that day had been involved in the searches 12 years before. The winchman who saw
03:36
Mr Brookfield from the helicopter only a few weeks before was also part of RAF 22 squadron looking for
03:44
Shane Kalako 12 years earlier. This brings so many people together around two really sad stories but it
03:51
shows the amazing willingness of volunteers and the emergency services to keep working and being so
03:58
determined to find somebody who's been missing. This place is incredible it's beautiful it's really
04:04
accessible it's easy to drive here and to look up at the mountains straight out of the car and these
04:10
mountains especially on a day like this they look achievable they look accessible and it's an amazing
04:16
adventure but you might not always understand the scale of these hills you might not always understand
04:21
the impact of weather and how quickly it changes here and if you don't have experience of walking
04:26
and climbing and years of that experience you're learning as you go and so we have a very simple
04:32
safety message is be prepared in the mountains understand what your limitations are seek out some
04:40
formal training and tell other people where you're going and have a communication plan also very very
04:47
important something we'll often forget you might have a plan to how to get to the top of a mountain
04:52
but how are you getting off that mountain have you researched what your descent route might be
04:57
understand how to contact emergency services so if something goes wrong dial 999 ask for mountain
05:03
rescue and the police will put you through make sure you've got the right clothing for the weather make
05:08
sure you've got enough food and drink particularly if it's hot i would also say wear bright clothes
05:14
if you're wearing bright blue or bright orange and red and something that doesn't naturally blend
05:18
it's going to be so much easier to find you looking back at these two cases with shane kalako and mr
05:24
brookfield we realized they were experienced walkers and they were doing what they loved actually very
05:29
well prepared as well but it's always possible that something will go wrong and in these cases both of them
05:34
ended up in ground which really is very dangerous and descending down a gully which might have seemed
05:39
inviting from the summit but as it got steeper and more broken it became harder and harder i think this
05:46
is a good opportunity to express our gratitude to the volunteers who were involved in these cases and
05:53
rescues every week throughout the year and they all come together with the sole purpose of saving lives and
06:01
protecting people in the mountains for me i volunteer because it's incredible it's an amazing adventure
06:07
and you realize that it brings value to other people's lives and i'm very grateful to be part of
06:12
that and in fact helping where somebody has passed away and bringing them back off the mountains for their
06:19
families and loved ones for me that's a massive privilege we want you to come and enjoy these beautiful
06:24
mountains in errori in snowdonia it is amazing but come and be safe and enjoy it
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