Today at 15:39 North West Ambulance Service (Greater Manchester) paged the Team for assistance with an incident in the Eccles (Monton) area.

A full team call out message with more details was paged at 15:47 Hrs regards a child with serious injuries, arising from a rope swing accident. The first Team member, Dave Healey, arrived on scene at the same time as the responding NWAS Ambulance and both met two members of the public who had made the 999 call.

These two girls led the NWAS crew & MRT to the incident location, where on arrival we found the 12 year old injured boy with his parents & friends looking after him. The incident location was on the former railway embankment, of what is now the Worsley to Eccles linear walkway. The young lad had been playing on a rope swing and had fallen landing some 15 feet away from the swing and another 10 feet below the height of the swing, sustaining a broken arm in the fall and complaining of leg & rib pain.

As more Team members and vehicles arrived, we dispatched some urgent kit required at the scene via two PCSO’s who were in the area on mountain bikes and kindly volunteered their help. The casualty’s arm injury was packaged with a Team vacuum splint, he was then placed onto a longboard and then onto a Bell Mountain Rescue Stretcher, for the stretcher carry back to the waiting Ambulance.

The casualty ready for onward transport…..

… the stretcher carry back to the RVP

 

With 5 of the casualty’s friends also present, they were asked to help with the rope haul of the stretcher up the slope onto the disused railway line, which then took the stretcher party back to the roadhead, next to Monton Parish Church.

With the handover of the casualty to the NWAS ambulance crew at 17:03 hrs, it left us to pack away the equipment used and also for one of the vehicles to travel to Hope Hospital to collect the Team equipment which had gone with the casualty to hospital.

Handing over the casualty to NWAS

All together three Team Vehicles and 17 team members – with a further 2 stood down responding were involved in this incident. Along with 2 x GMP Police Community Support Officers – PCSO Matthew Turner & PCSO James Brierley from Eccles Police Station and NWAS Emergency Ambulance C442 from Sale ambulance Station, together with the usual excellent help from NWAS Emergency Control Centre in Belle Vue.

This incident yet again demonstrates the excellent joint working relationship we have with NWAS & their emergency crews, along side the 2 PCSOs, who ferried equipment for us.

Thanks also to the mother & father of the injured boy, who though obviously concerned, spent time thanking all involved for helping their son.