2012

Feb 9 2012

Incident 19/2012

At 15:30 this afternoon, during a period of freezing rain affecting many parts of Greater Manchester, our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE received a direct call from NWAS (Manchester) who were very busy with a high emergency call volume.

The team was requested to attend a property in the Astley Bridge area of Bolton, where a woman had slipped injuring her leg.

At 15:35 a team pager message requested the attendance of one team vehicle, which would also be required to transport the woman to hospital.

Our BM1 Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulance responded with three team members on board, but en-route was redirected to another potentially more serious emergency, so our BM3 vehicle with two members on board responded in place.

The second emergency call was then cancelled via NWAS (The 999 caller stated to NWAS that they no longer required an Ambulance!) and so both vehicles attended the original call, supported by our Team Leader, and team member Neil Warburton, who noticed our responding vehicles whilst he was out on business near to the incident.

Arriving at the property at 16:09, our responding members discovered a 69 year old woman had slipped on ice glazed patio tiling at her home address, sustaining a serious lower leg fracture.

Her leg injury was splinted, and pain killing gas was administered, she was then placed on a mountain rescue stretcher and carried the short distance to our BM3 vehicle, which departed at 16:57 for Royal Bolton Hospital.

Our second responding vehicle, BM1 transported the injured woman’s husband to hospital.

At the time of this incident, the patio, driveway and road surface around this property were all ice glazed, making walking very difficult without slipping. (And carrying a stretcher with a casualty on it is a very careful proposition indeed)

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Feb 5 2012

Incident 18/2012

Two local male youths from the Horwich area, became lost this afternoon on the misty still partially snow covered moorland of Rivington Moor, prompting a large scale Police and Mountain Rescue response today.

The two fourteen year olds, on a moorland walk between Rivington Pike and Winter Hill, ‘lost’ the path in the gathering late afternoon gloomy and misty conditions, contacting the parents of one on their mobilephone.

In turn emergency calls were then made to Greater Manchester Police, who forwarded the call to Lancashire Constabulary, for their response and action.

Very quickly at 16.37hrs the team was paged by Lancashire Constabulary (and Greater Manchester Police) and with many members still present at our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ from the previous incident, a large number of team members were readily available.

Our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE and Deputy Team Leader Geoff Seddon met up with responding Police Officers at the Georges Lane, Horwich, initial RVP, as team members gathered at our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ.

Meeting up with one of the missing youths father, it was quickly determined the father was in mobilephone contact with the two, and the father in company with our Deputy Team Leader Geoff Seddon then drove along the moorland track of Georges Lane, attempting to guide to safety the two youths.

With the rapid onset of darkness, the two youths were guided to the track via the lights of Geoffs vehicle, arriving on Georges Lane at 17.30hrs, where they were quickly checked out by Alistair Greenough, one of the teams experienced Casualty Carers (Outside the team a full time Accident and Emergency Nurse) who discovered they were thankfully in good health but cold and wet.

Both youths and the father then very kindly personally thanked Police Officers and MRT members on scene for their help.

The following resourses were called to this incident;

  • Bolton MRT; All five Team vehicles, twenty eight team members, some on satndby at our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ and others at the search RVP with Police on Georges Lane, Horwich.
  • Lancashire Constabulary ; Major Divisional Resources from Chorley Division, including the Neighbourhood Policing Team, Response Team, Operational Support Team, and PCSOs.
  • Lancashire Constabulary and Greater Manchester Police Force Control Rooms.

With this incident we finished a very busy period (Particularly in view of the personnel hours involved) since we were called out at 01.38hrs in the early hours of Saturday 4th February 2012.

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Feb 5 2012

Incident 17/2012

At 12.54hrs with three team vehicles and six members already at Incident 16 (See previous Incident Report) we were called by NWAS (Manchester) to assist an NWAS (Manchester) Emergency Ambulance crew with an injured snow sledger on the shallow valley side of Middlebrook, at the bottom of Ladybridge Lane, barely a couple of minutes from our Ladybridge Hall, Bolton, Base / HQ.

A full team page was made at 12.58hrs, with our BM1 vehicle responding from the Bradshaw incident (Incident 16) and a further vehicle, BM2, responding direct from our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ with team members Elaine Gilliland and Chris Tennant on board.

Our BM2 vehicle arrived at the NWAS (Manchester) Emergency Ambulance, which was parked at the railway bridge at the foot of Ladybridge Lane, at 13.05hrs followed by our BM1 vehicle at 13.09hrs.

Essential rescue kit was quickly taken across to the incident site by the four initially responding team members, and one of the NWAS crewman who had returned to his vehicle to meet the responding team members.


Thanks are also expressed here to two passers by, husband and wife Phil and Christine Boake, who greatly assisted by helping carry kit to the incident scene. (In one of those coincidences, Phil Boake is an NWAS Ambulance Driver Trainer, so commented that he was getting to see what the Emergency crews get up to on incidents)

With the NWAS Emergency Ambulance crew (From Bolton North Ambulance Station) jointly working with MRT members, the 44 years old male sledger was carefully splinted using an MRT full length specialist vacuum mattress, given his suspected lower back injuries.


He was then placed on a mountain rescue ‘Alpine Lite’ specialist stretcher, and commencing at 13.30hrs evacuated back to the waiting NWAS Emergency Ambulance, which then departed for Royal Bolton Hospital.

Yet again the close co-operative working between NWAS and the Bolton MRT brought about the successful conclusion of this incident.


In total eleven Bolton MRT members were present on scene at this incident, with a further seven stood down responding who were not ultimately required.

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Feb 5 2012

Incident 16/2012

With six team members at our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ and NWAS (Manchester) aware of this, (Given the wintry and very snowy ground conditions prevailing) at 12.17hrs we were called out to assist two NWAS Rapid Response Vehicle crews at an incident adjacent to Bradshaw Cricket Club.

A lady had suffered a very serious medical collapse in the upstairs of a cottage, and with the access track to the property being covered in snow and ice, Emergency Ambulance access would have been very problematical.

All six members, in three Team Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulances responded, with our BM3 / 4 vehicles arriving on scene at 12.35hrs closely followed by our BM1 vehicle at 12.40hrs.

The very ill lady involved was moved from her bedroom on one of our MIBs specialist stretchers, with the NWAS staff and team members carefully manoeuvring her down the steep cottage stairwell.

She was then placed on an Alpine Lite Mountain Rescue Stretcher and placed in the rear of our BM3 vehicle, which immediately left at 13.10hrs for Royal Bolton Hospital, with one of the NWAS RRV Paramedics also travelling in our vehicle.

Part way through this rescue, our BM1 vehicle with team members Craig Lamb (Chairman) and Garry Rhodes (Team Leader) had to depart this incident for another incident.

The other four team members involved in this incident were Fred Taylor, Matthew Hailwood, Ken Oakes and Diane Blakeley, who all worked alongside the two NWAS RRV solo crew members, who were delivering expert casualty care.

The team would like to express thanks to the husband of the lady involved, who kindly and very quickly moved household furniture out of the way to enable the evacuation of his wife.

We have since received the following communication from one of the NWAS RRV staff involved; (Who was writing in turn to his Sector Manager):

“I would like to ask if you could pass on thanks to Bolton Mountain Rescue Team.

I attended a job in a Rapid Response Vehicle in Bradshaw. The lady involved was very poorly and lived in a remote cottage, access was very bad due to snow, ice and steep roads. Helimed was offline due to weather.

I requested MR support due to the patient carrying capacity of their 4×4 Land Rover . The lady was moved in their Land Rover to Bolton Hospital.

I thought it would sound better to receive an official thank you from you as Sector Manager as I was working on one of your RRV’s, I did pass on my thanks on the day.

Regards, Team Leader, Hazardous Area Response Team (HART), North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust.“

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Feb 4 2012

Incident 15/2012

At 14:12hrs this wintry and increasingly snowy afternoon the team was paged by NWAS (Greater Manchester Area) Control followed two minutes later by NWAS (Lancashire) Control, requesting the team go to ‘crewed vehicle standby’ to assist with any incidents occurring where NWAS needed our assistance due to wintry road conditions.

Similar calls were made to our colleagues at Rossendale and Pendle MRT, Bowland Pennine MRT and Oldham MRT, in both Lancashire and Greater Manchester.

We were requested to put one Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulance on standby at Darwen Ambulance Station with four team members, backed up by team member John Fletchers 4WD vehicle and Carly Raines.

Our other three Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulances maintained their standby at our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ.

In total 26x Bolton MRT call out list members were involved in the standby upto 22.00hrs this evening.

We were stood down responding to only a few calls (The public heeding the NWAS media appeals to only call for an ambulance in dire circumstances) including transporting NWAS Emergency Ambulance staff members to Bolton South Ambulance Station.

On his way home from this standby, team call out list member Dave Cook came across an RTC in the Bolton area, which has since been reported in the ‘Bolton News.’

There follows Dave’s account of his involvement in this incident;

“Just to let you know I was involved in an incident on my way home from base tonight at around 19.00hrs.

Obviously I was still in team kit and a lot of photographs were taken by onlookers.

The car in front of me skidded and crashed into “Su’s” chip shop on Belmont Road, Bolton, the entire roller shutter door and housing landing on top of the car. The driver was uninjured but as he was disabled he could not get out of the damaged drivers side door, and could not move across to the passenger side.

Basically I made sure everyone was OK until the Fire and Police arrived. (which included two Fire Appliances from W50 Bolton Central Fire Station)

Apparently the driver then purchased Fish and Chips twice, then went home!”

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