At circa 21.30hrs this evening our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE was contacted direct by NWAS (Manchester) Control regards the teams assistance at an incident involving two casualties in the Hall i’ th’ Wood area of Bolton, with the initial report of a youth fallen down a steep slope.

A full team call out page was made at 21.38hrs, resulting in 17x team members in our Bolton Mobiles One, Two and Three vehicles responding to the incident location, which was on a steep slope in the Eagley Brook valley area, with the Ambulance and MRT RVP situated at the head of Green Way at the junction of Green Way Close and the Stray.

Our first two members Dave Carter and Peter Heeley arrived at the RVP at 21.55, joining various ambulance crews already at the casualty site and on route to the casualty site, closely followed by our Team Leader at 21.56 and another responding NWAS unit.

At 22.10hrs all three of our Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulance vehicles were on scene together with most of our responding team members.

By this time the first casualty a 40 year old female, had walked with assistance to one of the NWAS Emergency Ambulances present and had been taken to Royal Bolton Hospital.

The second casualty, a 19 year old male, had fallen down a steep wooded slope, composed of loose soil, and had suspected spinal injuries.

He was made secure, treated and immobilised on site with some difficulty due to the steep and slippy nature of the slope, by a combined party of NWAS personnel and team members, whilst other team members provided lighting for the incident scene.

His suspected spinal injuries were treated by placing him into a spinal splint and then onto a specialist stretcher, which was then pulled up the slope with the team providing an assisted rope haul.

He was then evacuated some 200 metres across fields in a mountain rescue stretcher to the waiting 2nd NWAS Emergency Ambulance, where he was transferred for onward transport to Royal Bolton Hospital.

By 23.16hrs all NWAS and Bolton MRT members had left the scene.

The following resources were involved in this rescue incident;

• 17x Bolton MRT members on scene. (including one of our two team Doctors, Clare Whitney)
• 4x Bolton MRT members stood down responding.
• 3x Bolton MRT Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulance Vehicles.
• 2x NWAS (Manchester) Emergency Ambulances, and four crew members.
• 2x NWAS (Manchester) HART vehicles and their solo drivers / Paramedics.
  (HART = Hazardous Area Rescue Team)
• 1x NWAS (Manchester) USAR vehicle and its solo driver / Paramedic. (USAR = Urban Search and Rescue)
• NWAS (Manchester) Belle Vue Emergency Control Centre.

This is another example of a recent incident where we have worked smoothly and very successfully with the relatively new NWAS HART / USAR Paramedics, and alongside our established joint working with the NWAS (Manchester) Emergency Ambulance crews and Control staff, our commonality of equipment and excellent mutual respect and understanding of each others service has led to yet another successful joint rescue / casualty care incident.