Incident 95/2013

During Sunday 22nd September, since being first informed of a missing 50 years old man in the Tyldesley area early on the same afternoon, GMP became increasingly concerned for his well being, particularly after items belonging to the missing person were located on open land in the vicinity of Hindsford Brook during the early evening.

An initial Police search operation, culminating in the involvement of a Police helicopter during the late evening then took place with negative result.

Aware of this Police search operation, our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE who lives very nearby to the search area, discussed the possible involvement of our specialist Mountain Rescue Trailing Dog.

Options were discussed between our Team Leader and the GMP Force Duty Officer, late in the evening, with the decision to undertake a search of the woodland around the Hindsford Brook area being taken, to commence early the next day.

At 08.14hrs on Monday 23rd September, the team was contacted via SARCALL to confirm the planned search operation was still required, and the team therefore responded to this call for assistance.

With responding team members initially meeting at our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ, they then went on to the search RVP situated on Crawford Avenue in Tyldesley, arriving by 10.10hrs.

In a joint search operation with GMP, by 10.45hrs our Trailing Search Dog Boris and his handler Steve Nelson, assisted by team member Paul Chisholm as navigator, had commenced the first of many ‘trails’ that were established throughout this search operation.

Other team members carried out a detailed search around the area where the missing males belongings had been located the evening previous, this involved a search of open grassland, dense woodlands and the course of Hindsford Brook.

At two separate times during the afternoon, a helicopter from NPAS again joined in the search operation.

By 15.30hrs all designated search taskings had been completed, with Police lines of enquiries still continuing.

At 15.42hrs members left the area, and just as we arrived back at our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ we received the information from GMP that at circa 16.10hrs the missing person had been located at an address outside the search areas.

The following resources were utilised during the search operation of today;

• Greater Manchester Police; Two members of GMP Tactical Aid Unit (One of which was a Missing Person Search Manager) and three local Police Officers directly involved.
• Bolton Mountain Rescue Team; Sixteen Call Out list members, our four Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulance vehicles and our Incident Control vehicle.
• National Police Air Service; Helicopter NPAS 21 from City Airport Manchester (Barton)

**Included within the Bolton MRT response was our Mountain Rescue Trailing Dog Handler Steve Nelson (a member of SARDA Wales) and his specialist Mountain Rescue Trailing Dog Boris.

The team and GMP would like to thank the residents of Nr 125 Crawford Avenue, Tyldesley, who kindly kept all involved supplied with tea and coffee, and allowed us all to use their bathroom.

We would also like to thank other householders in the area, for their understanding during this search operation when we ‘took over’ this part of Crawford Avenue with Mountain Rescue and Police vehicles.