Incident 93/2008

At 22:16 this evening the team was contacted by Greater Manchester Police with regards to assistance for a continuing search operation for a missing 67 year old male from a nursing home in South Manchester.

A full team response took place resulting in 19 team members attending alongside Terry Blumhardt, a member of Turangi Search & Rescue Team in the central North island of New Zealand (at the time of the callout, he was staying with team member Chris Tennant prior to visiting our team the next day at the conclusion of his month long study tour of UK Search & Rescue teams).

The team was tasked to a high priority area, with the search of Birchfields Park in the Dickenson Road/Birchfield Road area of Manchester.

21 Greater Manchester Police Officers were also detailed to this search alongside a Greater Manchester Police Missing Person Search Manager.

As a detailed search of the park was jointly undertaken by mixed BMRT and GMP resources, the Greater Manchester Police Air Support Unit Helicopter also joined in the search.

Alongside the search of this park, GMP Officers were also searching other parks in the Manchester area including Whitworth Park.

Just after 01:00 on Monday 22nd September it was decided to conclude the search operation pending further Police enquiries and as the team was debriefing we received at 01:11 a rescue call from NWAS (Greater Manchester) to attend an incident in Cadishead.

Some members remained behind at the Birthfields Park RVP to pack away equipment, liaise with the GMP Police Search Manager regarding what we had done, and to return our Control trailer to its Bolton base. Other members were despatched immediately to the Cadishead incident.

The missing man was subsequently found outside this search area on the afternoon of Monday 22nd September and returned to the residential care home.