Incident 80/2009

On Thursday 22nd October 2009, our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE was contacted by Phil O’Brien, Team Leader of Bowland Pennine MRT, regards help with a large scale search being mounted on Friday 23rd October by Lancashire Constabulary in BPMRTs area, for a long term missing male.

The request given the circumstances was that “no team members need to take the time off work,” so our response was understandably less than for a ’normal’ search operation.

Nevertheless six Bolton MRT met to depart our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ at 07.30hrs on the morning of Friday 23rd October to assist in the search.
They journeyed to the Broughton / Whittingham area of Lancashire, to join Bowland Pennine MRT, Lancashire Constabulary and other resources to attend the 08.30hrs briefing on the missing 31 years old, Broughton man.

Our Team members teamed up with Rossendale and Pendle MRT members to cover four search areas, commencing their search at 09.30hrs, finishing at 17.30hrs, being joined in the afternoon by a further three Bolton MRT members,

The days intensive search operation failed to find any trace of the missing man, last seen local to the search areas on 29th September 2009, and Police enquiries are continuing.

The following resources are believed to have been deployed on the day of this search;

• Bolton MRT, 9x team members and two Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulances.
• Bowland Pennine MRT, 15x team members and other team resources.
• Duddon and Furness MRT, 6x members.
• Kendal Mountain Search and Rescue Team, 6x members.
• Rossendale and Pendle MRT, 4x members.
• Search and Rescue Dog Association, 5x Search Dogs and Handler teams.
• Lancashire Constabulary, major resources including
  • at least 40x Officers,
  • two Dog Teams,
  • two Horse Teams,
  • Catering Support and
  • their Air Support Unit helicopter ’Oscar November 99’