At 08:38 this morning we were paged by NWAS (Lancashire) to provide standby assistance to the Ambulance Service due to the wintry road conditions prevailing and the forecast of more snow on the way.

Balancing a potential requirement to also be available for NWAS (Manchester) due to similar wintry conditions, it was decided to despatch one Landrover Mountain Rescue ambulance to the requested standby location of Darwen Ambulance Station (Two team members were also on immediate standby in case of calls on the NWAS (Manchester) side of our operational area).

Three team members crewed our BM1 vehicle and remained on standby at Darwen Ambulance Station until stood down by NWAS (Lancashire) control in the mid afternoon.

The three team members involved in this standby, Chris Greenhalgh, Fred Taylor and Joanne Stones would like to thank the resident staff at Darwen Ambulance Station for their hospitality and also the interest shown in the work of our team.

At this same time of our standby our colleagues at Rossendale & Pendle MRT were also on standby in their team area, as were our colleagues at Oldham MRT.