At 22:45 this evening our Team Leader was contacted by GMP with regards to the recovery of a male hill walker, who had suffered a fatal collapse on a moorland track above Crowthorn. At the time of callout it was reported that police officers had already been to the scene and also required the assistance of the team. A full pager callout was made at 22:56 to assemble at the RVP given, Crowthorn Rd, above Edgworth.

Our first team member arrived on scene at 23:15 to liaise with the officer in charge who had also arrived at the same time. Both a GMP and a LANCON off-road vehicle had tried to drive part-way to the scene but had slid off the track, and alongside the recovery of the hillwalker’s body, the team was also requested to assist in the recovery of the 2 Police Landrover Discovery vehicles. 25 team members were involved in a protracted night time operation, which had some team members involved in the recovery of the hill walker, and others involved in recovering the Police vehicles back to the track.

Team members illuminate the recovery of a Police Discovery.

Initially all 4 team Landrovers, led by our Deputy Leader’s off-road vehicle went, as far as they could go along the track and then split into the 2 respective parties. One party escorted Police officers including detectives to the location of the deceased hillwalker, also providing area lighting and digital photography. The 67 year old male hill walker had fatally collapsed on the track leading from the end of Crowthorn Road, where his body was initially found by a late night Mountain Biker. The team was involved in a strecher evacuation back to the main body of team vehicles where a prolonged recovery operation by the second party was taking place using our vehicle mounted winches and standard towing techniques, which successfully recovered both Police vehicles, undamaged, to the track side. (However, the team damaged a winch cable and some towing strops in the process). All 4 team vehicles, our DTL’s vehicle and the GMP and LANCON Landrover Discoverys then all had to reverse along a moorland track because of treacherous slippy track conditions and the lack of any turning point. Our last vehicle left the roadhead location at 03:28 in the morning. During the course of this incident the team was initially put on standby and then called to a search incident in Bolton. See incident report 25/2005 for further details.

The convoy of vehicles, going back to Crowthorn Rd rendezvous point.