Today, with wintry conditions continuing throughout the whole of the Greater Manchester area, the team was requested by NWAS (Manchester) to go to crewed vehicle standby at our Ladybridge Hall base.

This commenced at circa 11:00, finishing at circa 17:30. Throughout this whole period, all four of our team Landrover Mountain Rescue ambulances were available to both NWAS (Manchester) and NWAS (Lancashire).

As with yesterday, NWAS emergency staff and paramedics were directly attached to the Bolton MRT.

In the case of today, all the emergency staff and paramedics were from the NWAS HART-USAR (Hazardous Area Response Team – Urban Search and Rescue).

A small number of calls were received, all resulting in quick stand downs.

An unbelieveably quiet day for us and the attached HART-USAR personnel, perhaps the message to only call ambulances for life-threatening emergencies is now being taken up by the public.

As with yesterday, many thanks to our hosts at our base location (NWAS Ladybridge Hall headquarters) for arranging for their grounds maintenance staff to completely clear snow from our base/HQ entry and exit roads, and to the Ladybridge Hall catering staff for providing all the Bolton MRT members with a full lunchtime meal.

In total, 12 Bolton MRT team members were involved over this standby period.

During the day our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE was interviewed by Granada TV news (over the phone), the local press, and conducted a live radio interview for Tower FM, regards the team’s recent high volume of incidents.

Our Deputy Team Leader Geoff Seddon was similarly interviewed for BBC Radio Manchester.