Apr 28 2008
Incident 54/2008
At 23:24, very late this evening the team was paged by NWAS (Greater Manchester Area) Paramedic Emergency control regarding assistance with an off road bike accident in the Pennington Flash Country Park area.
The pager call was answered by our Team Leader whilst other members commenced a response to our bases to collect vehicles and to the general incident location.
It was very quickly established that there was sadly a fatality, with another casualty involved suffered various injuries.
Our response on behalf of the ambulance service was stood down, changing to a body recovery operation for Greater Manchester Police.
It appears that in the late hours of the evening a 23 year old male and a 27 year old male were riding an off-road motorbike on the tracks of the Pennington Flash Country Park. In doing so, the motorbike collided with a metal gate in the middle of the track.
The 23 year old suffered a minor facial injury and a suspected leg and hand fracture. The 27 year old male suffered severe head injuries (and was subsequently pronounced dead on scene).
The 23 year old male involved in this accident contacted the emergency services, which resulted in an intense police and ambulance search operation to locate the exact whereabouts of the pair, with the team being considered for this search, the pair were discovered by the GMP Air Support Unit helicopter which directed ambulance staff and police officers to the scene.
It was at this stage that were contacted by Ambulance Control.
Just after midnight a full team callout was instigated to recover the body of the 27 year old man.
In total 24 team members responded, initially providing lighting for the Police investigation team.
At approximately 01:45, an evacuation of the male’s body commenced, to the police & ambulance RVP on Slag Lane, in the Plank area of Pennington Flash, Leigh.
Team members tidying kit away after this incident.
By 02:30 in the morning of Tuesday 29th April, the body recovery operation was completed with our involvement in this incident ending at 03:00 with our vehicles back at base.
Resources involved in this incident included two NWAS emergency ambulances, an ambulance rapid response vehicle, an ambulance area operational manager, and various GMP traffic and divisional police officers including their Collision Reconstruction Unit, all combined with our 24 members and two of our team Landrover ambulances, and the GMP Air Support Unit. (The Pennington Flash area Ranger also attended to open gates in an attempt to get closer access to the incident location).
For some of our new members recently taken on, this was the first time they had been involved in a body recovery operation, made worse by the tragic circumstances of this accident.
The condolences of the team are expressed to the family of the 27 year old man who died.
Jun 9 2013
Incident 67/2013
Following a GMP Twitter alert, regarding a missing Atherton man, our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE made contact at 18.22hrs with the GMP Force Duty Officer and then a GMP Missing Person Search Manager.
The 80 years old man who had been missing since the morning of today, was last seen in the Leigh area, and with nightfall approaching, concern given his age and condition, was mounting.
Our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE was requested to attend GMP Leigh Police Station to meet with the responding GMP Missing Person Search Manager to formulate a search strategy and search plan.
At 18.49hrs the team was paged to standby status, with five team members assembling at our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ in case of immediate need.
In the interim, details of the missing man were also paged out to all our members, given that some of our membership lives in the area where the man was missing from.
Two team members, Mike O’Brien and Louise Jorgensen, along with Louise’s husband Paul, a former long serving Bolton MRT member, changed their plan for a social bike ride in the same area as the missing man, to that of a search of local tracks and bridleways.
At circa 19.36 hrs with our Team Leader was informed that the missing man had been located in the vicinity of stables on Slag Lane, north of Lowton, and at 19.41hrs the team was stood down by pager.
By admin • 2013, Incident • • Tags: Leigh, Lowton, SearchLowland