During the early hours of this morning, emergency services saw themselves stretched in West Yorkshire due to weather related incidents. This culminated in Yorkshire Ambulance Service declaring a ‘major incident,’ and directly due to the high volume of calls upon their service, in a mutual aid agreement requested the assistance of NWAS (Greater Manchester Area)
The following is a part extract from the BBC West Yorkshire website, dated today:
Severe weather in Leeds and West Yorkshire
Ice has caused treacherous conditions in West Yorkshire, with the emergency services reporting high numbers of accidents on roads and pavements.
Black ice has resulted in an “exceptional” number of crashes, mainly on the motorway network, police said.
Yorkshire Ambulance Service said it had received “unprecedented” levels of calls relating to the ice.
It urged people only to call 999 if someone had a life-threatening illness or injury.
The service said it had activated its “major incident plan” to allow special arrangements to be put in place to cope with the surge in demand, including cancelling non-essential transport journeys to help with the 999 emergency service.
Dr Alison Walker, executive medical director at the trust, said: “The service has received hundreds of 999 calls for weather-related incidents and we are treating a lot of patients involved in road traffic collisions and injured in slips, trips and falls.
“These calls are in addition to other medical emergencies such as heart attacks and strokes.”
The resources then deployed by NWAS (Greater Manchester Area) to assist the situation in Yorkshire, resulted in turn in NWAS (Greater Manchester Area) requesting the assistance of our team and Oldham MRT to provide assistance to NWAS (Greater Manchester Area)
We were initially paged at 10.04hrs, answered by our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE, who consulted with NWAS (Greater Manchester Area) Emergency Operations Centre, as to what resources the Bolton MRT could place at the availability of NWAS. Our Team Leader also liaised with Mick Nield, his counterpart Team Leader in Oldham MRT.
At 10.26hrs the Bolton MRT membership was paged to standby alert, with a full team call out page being made at 11.10hrs for all available members to RVP at our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ.
In liaison with NWAS (Greater Manchester Area) Emergency Operations Centre, three of our four Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulances with three crew members on board each, were placed at the use of NWAS, controlled and co-ordinated by our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE with initial help from colleague team members Alan James and Dave Marsh, in constant liaison with NWAS (Greater Manchester Area) Emergency Operations Centre.
The three vehicles and their crews throughout the early afternoon and into late afternoon responded to four emergencies, in the Hawkshaw, Great Lever, Bolton town centre and Tonge Moor areas.
Casualties ranged in age from four to sixty three, including two with medical conditions, a pregnancy and a fall.
All four casualties were transported to Royal Bolton Hospital by Bolton MRT vehicles for treatment.
As the afternoon wore on more Bolton MRT members became available, but by 17.25hrs in agreement with NWAS (Greater Manchester Area) Emergency Operations Centre, the Bolton MRT, with thanks from NWAS (GMA) EOC for our appreciated help was stood down.
By this stage eighteen team Call Out list members were available at our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ with a further two of our Emergency Vehicles about to be declared available to NWAS, to join the three which had been deployed throughout the earlier part of the day. (One further Bolton MRT team member was stood down responding to our Base / HQ)
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Dec 27 2012
Incident 101/2012
At 13.34hrs this afternoon, our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE was contacted directly by Andy Simpson, the Deputy Team Leader of Rossendale and Pendle MRT, with information of a call out the RPMRT were responding to in the Tottington area, having been contacted at circa 13.30hrs by NWAS (Manchester) Emergency Operations Centre for assistance.
The incident was actually in the Bolton MRTs primary operational response area, and realising this Andy Simpson of RPMRT had contacted our Team Leader.
Garry decided to page out a ‘limited team member call out,’ aimed at those members living or working close to the incident scene, who were asked to respond in their own vehicle’s to assist the RPMRT response.
A full team pager message stating such was sent at 13.41hrs.
Apparently a member of the public walking on the Kirklees Trail adjacent to Tottington, had come across a 68 years old gentleman with shortness of breath, and concerned for his well being had dialled 999 for the Ambulance Service.
A solo crewed NWAS (Manchester) Rapid Response Vehicle had responded, and then called for MRT assistance to help evacuate the gentleman across fields back to the road head.
Our first team member, Steve Nelson, who lives very close to the incident scene, arrived on scene at 13.47hrs, joining responding RPMRT members.
Two other Bolton MRT members also arrived on scene quickly, Neil Warburton and John Dickinson, to assist RPMRT members with the stretcher evacuation of the ill man.
The man had been treated with appropriate drugs by the NWAS Paramedic to assist his breathing.
By circa 14.10hrs, the man was in the specialist Mountain Rescue Land Rover Discovery Ambulance of RPMRT which then took him for further treatment to Fairfield / Bury Hospital.
This incident was an excellent example of inter team joint operational working assisting NWAS (Manchester) just one of many times this year we have jointly worked on call outs with our close colleagues at Rossendale and Pendle MRT.
The following resources were deployed to this incident;
NWAS (Manchester) Rapid Response vehicle from Bury Ambulance Station.
And as a footnote ………. Bolton MRT team member Steve Nelson went straight back home to his two children to continue with his (Call Out interrupted!) Day 2 building of a ‘LEGO’ ‘Lord of the Rings’ Castle!
By admin • 2012, Incident • Tags: Tottington, WalkerRambler