At 20:28 this evening our Team Leader Garry Rhodes received a direct phonecall from NWAS (Lancashire) regarding the team’s urgent assistance with the report of a farmer collapsed on the lower slopes of Quarlton Heights, off Plantation Road, Edgworth.

In parallel with the direct phonecall to our Team Leader, the team also received a pager callout message from NWAS (Lancashire) which was acknowledged during Garry’s direct phonecall.

With 5 team members including our Team Leader already at our base at the concluding part of a lecture to some Air Cadets, it was possible to make an immediate team response by two of our team Landrover Mountain Rescue ambulances.

Our Team Leader was also able to respond immediately in his capacity as Team incident manager. Our first team member arrived on scene at the ambulance RVP at 20:52 to meet the recently arrived NWAS (Manchester) ambulance.

At 20:55 our Team Leader Garry Rhodes, Deputy Team Leader Geoff Seddon and our team vehicles BM2 and BM3 all arrived at the ambulance RVP.

Our first member on scene, Neil Warburton, had been taken along with the responding ambulance crew direct to the incident location in a field by neighbouring farmers in their four wheel drive vehicle.

Very sadly it was established that the farmer involved was deceased. A small number of team members and the NWAS Ambulance crew worked together to recover the man’s body back down the hillside to the waiting ambulance at just after 20 minutes past 9 O’Clock.

In total, alongside the NWAS (Manchester) Ambulance crew, 19 team members responded to this incident including two of our team vehicles. Three other team members were stood down responding to this incident.

All team members involved in this very sad incident extend their sincere condolences to the family and fellow neighbouring farmers of the farmer who died this evening.