2013

Today at 11.32hrs the team was paged by NWAS (Lancashire) Broughton EOC to provide assistance to an NWAS (Lancashire) Emergency Ambulance crew dealing with an injured male runner in the Sunnyhurst Woods area of Darwen.

The 25 year old man had been out training with a friend, as part of his recovery back to full health from an ankle injury, when he stumbled, suffering a suspected fractured ankle!

Upon realising the injured male was remote from the road, and on the track network within Sunnyhurst Woods (Actually on the Witton Weavers Way footpath route) the NWAS crew requested MRT assistance.

After our Deputy Team Leader Geoff Seddon and Call Out Contact Mike Marsh had both liaised with NWAS EOC a full pager call out was made at 11.40hrs by which time the first team members were already responding to our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ to collect a team vehicle.

In total three team Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulances responded, with the first going mobile at 11.45hrs.

Team member Paul Brain, was first at scene, at 11.55hrs, meeting one of the responding NWAS crew members at Earnsdale Road, who guided Paul to the casualty site, enabling him to inform other responding MRT members of the exact location of the injured runner.

With the arrival of the first team vehicles, at circa 12.00hrs at the initial RVP, other responding team members were transported in our Bolton Mobile 1 vehicle, nearer to the location, accessible via the local track network.

By 12.32hrs all responding members were involved in the rescue and subsequent stretcher evacuation of the injured male, who had been treated by the NWAS Emergency Ambulance crew.

The injured runner was placed on to one of our specialist mountain rescue stretchers, and carried from the location, on some steps within the woods, to our waiting Bolton Mobile 3 vehicle, which then further transported him to the NWAS Emergency Ambulance on Earnsdale Road.

The man was then taken by Ambulance to Royal Blackburn Hospital, with all resources on scene being clear by 13.26hrs.

The following resources were involved in this incident;

• NWAS (Lancashire); Broughton EOC and an Emergency Ambulance and two person crew from Darwen Ambulance Station.
• Bolton Mountain Rescue Team; Three Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulance vehicles (Radio callsigns Bolton Mobile 1,2 and 3) with one team member (Our Deputy Team Leader) co-ordinating our response from his home location, thirteen team Call Out list members present on scene, and two further Call Out list members stood down responding.

During this incident, the team received a further call out, this time from NWAS (Manchester) Parkway EOC, at 12.46hrs, regarding an incident in the Standish area, the NWAA Helimed was already responding to this incident, and as we were already deployed in Darwen, it was arranged that we would be called to assist if the Helimed crew required such.

As such we were not required to assist, and this call for our possible assistance is recorded here for information and interest only and does not feature in our Incident listings.