Wednesday evening weekly exercise, Bradshaw Brook, Bolton

Our evening exercise tonight took place in the wooded steep sided rocky valley section of Bradshaw Brook, Bradshaw, Bolton.

Organised by team members Tony Dawson and Chris Weatherhead, the scenario involved a cragfast male on one of the many rocky outcrops that make up this part of Bradshaw Brook, and a seriously injured female, lay at the base of the rockface – and to make things more interesting, ‘we’ were told Bradshaw Brook was in full spate / flow, and so the only access was from the top of the rock outcrop, with both exercise casualties having to be raised to the top – rather than the more usual being lowered to the bottom.

Playing the part of the two exercise casualties was Bolton MRT team member Jess Ellsmore, and her friend from Langdale Ambleside MRT (Also a former Teesdale and Weardale MRT member) Chris Toward.

At the exercise casualty site, Bolton MRT team member Alistair Greenough was present to oversee and comment upon the casualty care (He is a very experienced Accident and Emergency Nurse) whilst former Bolton MRT member Gyles Denn was present to oversee safety aspects.

With thanks to Bolton District Girl Guides, for the use of their Headquarters building car park, the ‘responding’ team members met at ‘The Stables,’ Bradshaw, with a search party sent out first.

During the course of tonight’s exercise, Chris was raised / assisted back up the rock face, using a rescue harness, whilst Jess was raised up on our Bell Mountain Rescue Stretcher, involving a line rescue raising system.

In total aside from the exercise casualties, organisers and observers, mentioned above, 22x team call Out list members were involved in this evenings challenging exercise.

Thankfully the threat of rain never materialised, nor did the dreaded midges make more than a token appearance.
Starting at 20.00hrs, the exercise was concluded at circa 23.10hrs following a short debrief by Chris Weatherhead, back at ‘The Stables.’

As with all our exercises, various points and issues raised will be addressed in subsequent training exercises.

With many mid week and weekend ‘Standby Rescue Covers’ commitments for a number of events (Six) in our local moorland area over June, our next evening training exercise is not scheduled to take place until July.