At 15:03 today our Team Leader was contacted by GMP regards the team’s assistance to an ongoing search enquiry centred on the River Mersey in Sale.
A person was observed in the water in the Jackson’s Bridge area of the River Mersey, immediately by Jackson’s Boat Public House, Sale.
An emergency call was made resulting in a callout of Police resources which involved the Police Underwater Search Unit who coincidentally were exercising in the local area. Greater Manchester Fire & Rescue Service also deployed their water rescue unit which joined in with the Police USU for a search downstream. A full team pager call was made at 15:26 with our first team member arriving on scene to liaise with Police Search Managers at 15:49.
The team was tasked with the search to compliment the efforts of the Police USU and GMFRS, which included the River Mersey from Jackson’s Bridge, downstream to the Crossford Bridge area. In total, 35 team members were committed to the search inclusive of 3 members of our joint Canoe/Kayak search unit.
During the initial stages of the search, we were joined in the hours of darkness by the Greater Manchester Police Air Support Unit helicopter.
By 20:48, all taskings had been achieved and the search was scaled down.
The search RVP was located within the carpark of the Jackson’s Boat Public House, Rifle Road, with the kind permission of the public house staff who up to the arrival of our catering trailer provided our first responding members with much appreciated hot drinks.
At the conclusion of the search, given the fact that all of our team members had responded and searched without having had any tea, the Jackson’s Boat Public House kindly agreed to supply all 36 of our responding members with a very reasonable discount on a welcome beefburger, chips and salad meal, with a vegetarian alternative for our veggie members.
During the search of the riverbank, our members as usual were deployed with a personal issue of PFD’s (Lifejackets), alongside other essential safety equipment such as throwlines and throwbags.
