2008

Dec 31 2008

Incident 128/2008

As part of NWAS (GMA) pre arranged plan to cope with peak demand calls on this festive season night, the Team was mobilised to directly assist NWAS (GMA) with ambulance calls throughout the evening, alongside our colleagues in the British Red Cross.

3 Team members mobilised to crew one team Landrover ambulance, which was placed at the disposal of NWAS (GMA).

1 Team member was at ECC Belle Vue for a briefing on the evening’s events at 18:00 & the other two Team members were available from 20:00, at our Ladybridge Hall Base/HQ. The first job was tasked at 21:30 (Our Incident 127/2008). The second job, and last incident of 2008 came in at 23:41 (Our Incident 128/2007) on the night of 31st December, New Year’s Eve.

1 Code Red, and 1 Code Green call were dealt with on New Year’s Eve.

The vehicle remained on standby for NWAS (GMA) through to the early hours of New Year’s Day.

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Dec 30 2008

Incident 126/2008

This afternoon the team was contacted by NWAS (Lancashire) Emergency Control to go to the aid of a female walker who had injured her lower leg whilst walking the Witton Weavers Way, on Turton Moor.

The North West Air Ambulance, Helimed 08 was also tasked to this incident and in spite of relatively poor visibility was able to evacuate the casualty from the hill, at which point the team was stood down whilst responding in our vehicles from Bolton Fire Station and Ladybridge Hall.

In total 20 Bolton MRT team members responded to this incident, with 2 team members stood down after arriving at the designated rendezvous point.

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Dec 18 2008

Incident 125/2008

This evening our Team Leader became aware of a developing possible major incident involving a train crash in the Congleton area of Cheshire.

Aware of the mountain rescue involvement which had taken place during the Greyrigg train disaster in Cumbria our Team Leader Garry Rhodes contacted his counterpart Joanne McClure in Cheshire Lowland Search & Rescue team to determine whether the team may become involved as the incident developed.

At this stage Cheshire LSAR had already made contact with Cheshire Constabulary and further contacts resulted in a request for Cheshire LSAR to go to standby at the forward RVP of Congleton Police Station.

In turn Cheshire LSAR had suggested to Cheshire Constabulary the involvement of Buxton MRT and Bolton MRT as two MRTs with excellent direct road links to the incident location should they be required.

Cheshire LSAR then requested our team to go to immediate standby at our Ladybridge Hall base / HQ in case of need.

Our full team callout page at 20:10 hours following our standby page at 19:43 hours resulted in 35 team callout list members assembling at our Ladybridge Hall base / HQ to await possible deployment.

Our 4 Landrover mountain rescue ambulances were made available complemented by team members 4 wheel drive vehicles.

Our control trailer, our brand new catering trailer and our aireshelta plus its trailer were also made available including full food stocks to mass-cater for the team in the field.

At 21:21 hours put team was stood down by Cheshire LSAR who had in turn been stood down by Cheshire Constabulary as thankfully not required.

At the time of this report (23:25 hrs) we understand the following resources were involved with this incident,

  • NWAS (Merseyside & Cheshire)
  • Cheshire Fire & Rescue Service including Urban Search & Rescue Team
  • Cheshire Constabulary
  • British Transport Police
  • 17 x Cheshire Lowland Search & Rescue Team (on standby, Congleton Police Station)
  • Bolton Mountain Rescue Team (on standby, Ladybridge Hall, Bolton)

Thankfully in the event unlike the Greyrigg train disaster there was no requirement for the specialist resources of LSAR and the MRT service, however it does demonstrate that a large number of personnel and specialist equipment and resources from the joint LSAR and MR service can be made immediately available for incidents of this nature should they ever occur again in the Cheshire area.

Webmaster – What a wonderful way for Joanne McClure to finish off her birthday – a Major Incident. From all in the Team MoJo Happy Belated Birthday

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Dec 8 2008

Incident 124/2008

At 11.45hrs late this morning our Team Leader Garry Rhodes was contacted directly by NWAS (Manchester) Emergency Control Centre for the teams assistance in evacuating an injured walker in the Greenmount area of Bury.

Our Team Leader was requested to liaise directly via mobilephone with an NWAS Rapid Response Vehicle Paramedic on scene already caring for the 60 years old woman, who had a suspected right ankle fracture following a slip on the icy / compacted snow path she had been walking along.

With more information obtained on this incident and the exact location, our Team Leader directly mobilised our Deputy Leader Geoff Seddon to this incident, along with our Ladybridge Hall base / HQ based BM1 Landrover Mountain Rescue Ambulance.

At 11.58hrs a full team pager call out was activated, along with our Team Leader liaising with the Team Leader of Rossendale and Pendle MRT, who happens to live near to this incident location for him to also respond plus any RPMRT members immediately available in the vicinity of this incident.
Our first team member arrived at the incident RVP off Shepherd Street / Brandlesholme Road, Greenmount, at 12.05hrs, followed by RPMRT members Andy Simpson (Team Leader) and Steve Hatton.

By this time an NWAS Emergency Ambulance was also on scene, with one of the NWAS crew members coincidentally being a member of RPMRT!

With the arrival of our BM1 vehicle, the injured woman was placed onto a Bell Mountain Rescue stretcher and then evacuated by a mixed Bolton MRT, Rossendale and Pendle MRT and NWAS party, part sledging and part carrying the stretcher to our BM1 vehicle, which then transported the injured woman to the NWAS Emergency Ambulance at the roadhead RVP just after 13.00hrs.

In total 4x Bolton MRT were involved on scene, 1x further member was stood down responding, with our Team Leader co ordinating events from his workplace. Rossendale and Pendle MRT had two members involved alongside the three NWAS Emergency ambulance straff on scene. (one of whom was also a member of RPMRT)
An excellent joint team work approach by three services all well versed and practised at working together. (Webmaster, the amazing thing is that this incident went as smoothly as it did given that out of the small number of MRT members involved two were Team Leaders and one was a Deputy Team Leader, only joking Garry!)

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Dec 4 2008

Incident 123/2008

At 10.25hrs along with our colleagues at Rossendale and Pendle MRT we were requested by NWAS (Lancashire) A&E Control to RVP at Darwen Ambulance Station (in our case) to standby regarding a large number of motorists stuck in snowdrifts on the snowbound road between Haslingden and Blackburn. Information at the time was that Lancashire Constabularly were considering evacuating all the motorists, and had asked NWAS to go to standby, who in turn called out ourselves and RPMRT.

As both teams were mobilising, we were stood down at 10.58hrs by NWAS as Lancashire Constabularly informed NWAS they and the MRTs were no longer required.

In the case of our team, four Team Landrover Mountain Rescue Ambulances were responding, along with 13x team members.

We subsequently established (from news reports !) that the Army had been called out to assist with the evacuation of motorists.

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