Incident 61/2013

At 12:53 this wet and rainy afternoon we were paged by NWAS (Manchester) EOC Parkway with the report of an injured mountain biker in the Rivington area.

The call was immediately answered by our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE who collected additional information.

Co-incidentally at the time of the pager call we had all four of our team Land Rover Ambulances mobile in the team area at the conclusion of providing standby rescue cover for an event in Darwen (see previous report)

All four vehicles had started to make an emergency response towards the Rivington area when at 13:00 a full team pager callout was made.

Our first two team members arrived jointly at 13:17 at the NWAS Ambulance RVP of the “New” Toilet Block, at the base of Rivington Pike/entrance to the Terraced Gardens, Rivington.

Here they linked up with the ambulance and air ambulance crews on scene. (The NWAA Helimed 72 having landed nearby on George’s Lane at 12:58).

They jointly dealt with a 47 year old female mountain biker from the Bolton area who had a suspected left lower leg fracture.

The rider had been acting as an informal guide to the area to a group of colleague mountain bikers from the Stockport area of Manchester, when she had her unfortunate accident.

Our first responding Land Rover, BM4, arrived on scene at 13:22 closely followed at 13:25 by our BM1, BM2 and BM3 vehicles.

At this time the NWAS and Helimed crews were treating and splinting the woman’s injured leg. Our team members carried the injured woman from the scene of her accident, in the Terraced Gardens, to the Emergency Ambulance on George’s Lane.

At circa 13:58 the NWAS Emergency Ambulance departed from George’s Lane, en-route to Royal Bolton Hospital, with the woman on board.

We would like to make mention of the colleagues of the injured woman who comforted her on scene, up to the arrival of the emergency services.

The following resouces were involved in this incident:

• NWAS (Manchester) EOC Parkway
• NWAS (Manchester) Emergency Ambulance from Bolton North ambulance station (two crew members on board)
• North West Air Ambulance Helimed 72, City Airport Manchester (Barton) (three crew members on board)
• Bolton MRT – four team Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulances (Twenty team callout list members on scene, a further three team members stood down responding, our Team Leader coordination the response via radio and telephone)

The following comments have been received (at the time of writing) via our Facebook page:

Gareth Wrafter “Cracking job and good teamwork from all ambulance, air ambulance and mountain rescue (I was one of the riders with the group) can’t praise them enough for what you do and what you have done on a personal level too and very proud to have a sister who is a long serving paramedic also”

Lee Anthony Bowes “Well done to all the guy’s & air ambulance, we’d be stuck without the air ambulance..when we are out on the moors, hope your ok”

Neil Grice “thanks for your rapid resopnse Guys & Girls… God Bless you x”

Allan Gorner “well done guys”

Simon McIntyre “Good effort, we’d be lost without you, keep up the good work and thank you”

Tony Bear-Grylls Brown “Aye well done boys good to know your there.”

Pam Jackson “Awesome these guys.”