Commencing at midnight last night and into the early hours of this morning, as with all previous New Year mornings following on from New Years Eve’s (For seventeen years now, commencing on 31st December 1998) the team had all four of its Land Rover Defender Mountain Rescue Ambulances along with its Minibus Ambulance and Incident Control Vehicle available, at the disposal of NWAS (Greater Manchester) assisting with a very high volume of calls upon its services, as part of the NWAS ‘Step Up’ procedure to mobilise additional resources to cope with the situation.
During the early hours Derek Cartwright, NWAS Director of Operations, called in to our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ to pass on his new year wishes to all present.
The team members who attended found themselves dealing with twelve separate incidents the first request to us from NWAS being at 00.05hrs, and the last call from NWAS coming in at 04:03hrs.
We were working alongside additional resources also drafted in to help NWAS on what is now its busiest evening and early morning of the year, these including assets from the British Red Cross and St John Ambulance, and major NWAS resources.
All of our Mountain Rescue Ambulance vehicles were crewed with appropriately trained MR personnel on board, all co-ordinated from our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ by our ’Control Team,’ themselves in contact with NWAS (Greater Manchester) Emergency Operations Centre, Parkway.
In total we had sixteen team Call Out list members, Support Group member Dave Rees (a former operational team member and ex Team Training Officer) assisted by Louise Copley (the wife of team member and Equipment Officer – Base and Catering Paul Copley) operating out of our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ, responding to the incidents of this morning.
Many of the incidents we attended involved intoxication to some degree, with in some cases NWAS assets and Greater Manchester Police resources also involved.
Injuries dealt with included falls, collapses, assaults, head injuries, breathing difficulties along with a number of intoxicated casualties.
In many cases, casualties were transported to local Hospital Accident and Emergency Departments directly in our Mountain Rescue Ambulance vehicles.
Grateful thanks must be passed onto the A&E Departments at the Royal Bolton Hospital and Royal Albert Edward Infirmary, Wigan, for their help and support when we were handing our casualties over to their respective departments.
Incident locations attended included Wigan, Orrel, Farnworth, Leigh, Atherton, Ramsbottom, Deane, Heaton and Bolton.
All our members had returned to our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ by 05.30hrs, with all kit checked back on to our four vehicles involved, all items requiring such restocked and our Base / HQ made clean and tidy for whatever the rest of 2015 is due to bring us!
The last team members left our Base / HQ at 06.30hrs.
