2009

At 04.02hrs in the early hours of the morning off went the pagers again ! and again it involved an emergency ambulance from NWAS (Manchester) stuck on ice responding to an emergency.

The location was a housing estate in the Marsh Green area of Wigan, and in a 2hrs 18 minutes operation, using our Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulance vehicle mounted winch, and with all members attending wearing crampons, on a housing estate in Wigan ! to cope with the two inch layer of ice across the entire road network of the estate we managed to extricate the Emergency Ambulance.
Twelve team members responded to this emergency call out.

We were then almost immediately despatched to a second incident of the same nature in the Pemberton area of Wigan.

This time we extricated the stuck Ambulance a little quicker, again with our members equipped with crampons, bags of road salt / grit, and snow shovels combined with much pushing and shoving. The eight team members involved finally got to bed at about 07.30hrs.

Well in the past we have organised a call out (search) on Christmas Day (for Boxing Day) and we’ve been put on stand by on Christmas Day, see details for last year, but never in the teams history have we actually been called out on Christmas Day until this evening that is !

With continuing wintry road conditions and treacherous iced up roads across a great part of Greater Manchester, at 22.44hrs this evening we were called out to the Kitt Green area of Wigan, where an Ambulance responding to an emergency call was stuck on an icy road. (NWAS Manchester)

One Team vehicle responded along with directly responding team members.
We were stood down responding when the ambulance crew and vehicle managed to self recover. Eight team members responded to this call out.

The Team Leader of Rossendale and Pendle MRT contacted our Deputy Team Leader Geoff Seddon directly requesting the Bolton MRT assist with an incident in RPMRTs area, as RPMRT were deployed elsewhere.

The incident was yet again to assist NWAS (Manchester) with accessing / evacuating a casualty from a home address, due to the snowy / icy conditions underfoot and snowbound / ice bound road surfaces.

Our Deputy Leader Geoff Seddon responded directly in his Land Rover Freelander, backed up by team member Steve Nelson in his Range Rover.

Geoff was on scene in the Ramsbottom area at 12.55hrs, and together with Steve and the St John Ambulance Brigade vehicle crew who were attending the incident on behalf of NWAS (Manchester), managed to get the 73 year old male casualty to the SJAB vehicle some 80 yards away, by using an ambulance patient chair, and carefully wheeling it / carrying it along the snowy / icy road.

The casualty had suffered a fractured left arm, and was taken to hospital by the SJAB vehicle.