MEMBERS of The Staffordshire Search and Rescue team will drop everything to help other people.

The 35-strong group is trained to look for missing, vulnerable people.

They work for free and are dedicated to helping the police find missing people.

They have been nominated for the Beyond the Call of Duty category in The Sentinel Our Heroes awards.

Rob Messenger, aged 20, one of the team's search technicians, nominated the group.

He said: "They give so much of their time and energy to the community.

"They deal with serious missing persons cases right down to using the group's 4x4 to help the ambulance service and the nurses get to and from the hospital in horrific weather."

The team consists of people who have separate working lives but who find the time to be part of the cause.

Rob said: "They dedicate around 4,000 hours a year to the training and if they have a call-out to an incident you can always rely on all the team to make it there.

"They work so hard and really deserve some recognition."

Father-of-two Paul Keen, aged 40, is the deputy chairman for the team.

He is thrilled that the community appreciates the work they put in. He said: "It's great to be recognised by the community and the police.

"We put in a lot of hours working on our communication skills and first aid training.

"We had a serious case a few weeks ago where it was crucial we found a missing person.

"When we found them, we were able to give them first aid and call the air ambulance.

"We are the lowland version of the mountain rescue team.

"When the police need our help, they ring us and we drop what we're doing."

Paul, an IT manager, could not say how many lives the team had saved.

He said: "We are not in it for the glory.

"Although we can go weeks without a call-out and we would love to be out practising our training, we hate to think there is someone out there who is in such a bad position that they need our help."

The group also provides first aid assistants for major public events.

Paul added: "We recently attended a run at Cannock Chase with 2,000 entrants and we provided first aid care."

The team has been together for six years.