Incident 42/2007

At 14:48 the team was contacted by GMP Force Control to render assistance with a search operation being escalated in connection with a missing 47 year old man, centred on the Bull Hill/Moses Gate area of Farnworth & South Bolton.

A full team standby pager call at 14:52 was followed by a full team callout page at 15:06.

At 15:50 the first elements of the team assembled at the search RVP at Loxham Street/Hall Lane entrance to Moses Gate Country Park (many thanks to the local Ranger for opening the height restriction barriers for us to gain access to the main car park).

Due to the time of day and the expanse of the search area, our team called for assistance on the resources of Rossendale & Pendle MRT who responded with 7 members, and Cheshire Lowland Search & Rescue Team who responded with 10 members.

In total 30 Bolton MRT members responded including a member of our Support Group, Tina Tennant who once again provided excellent on demand catering.

The Bolton team coordinated the search operation in hand with two GMP Missing Person search managers, with the Bolton team providing full control, coordination and catering for the 47 SRT volunteers.

Deployed within the search were 3 members of our canoe & kayak unit, with this unit being first deployed at 17:00 and with the first ground search parties being deployed at 17:37.

Prior to the team’s involvement the GMP Air Support Unit helicopter had also overflown the area. The search volunteers from all three SRT’s worked throughout the early evening into the night in atrocious torrential rain downpours and very wet ground conditions, searching local wooded areas, the margins of small reservoirs and the local river, all to no avail.

By 22:20 all search parties had returned to search control for debriefing with all search & rescue assets leaving the location at 23:00. Police enquiries into the whereabouts of this missing person, who was last seen at 21:30 on Friday evening, 9th February, are continuing.