Well we did’nt get to catch up much on our sleep !

NWAS (Manchester) called us out again by pager at 08.48hrs, and this led on to a continuous string of 9x Call Outs, interspersed with some additional calls when we were stood down almost immediately.

The last call of the day came in at 17.04hrs completeing 42 minutes later.
Every call was as a direct result of the continuing treacherously icy road conditions in our part of Greater Manchester, with us assisting NWAS (Manchester) vehicles and one St John Ambulance Brigade vehicle in incidents ranging from Wigan, Hindley, Tyldesley, the same location as Incident 97, 12 of 16 of Tuesday 22nd December 2009, Blackrod, Swinton and Withington, (Manchester)

In many cases our members again resorted to wearing crampons, the only safe way to move, with the thaw having little effect on the compressed snow and ice conditions prevailing.

We recovered NWAS (Manchester) Emergency Ambulances and Rapid Response vehicles, stretcher evacuated two casualties, sledged them on ice actually, using our Bell Mountain Rescue Stretchers from ice bound housing estates to awaiting NWAS Ambulances, then recovered the ice bound Ambulances ! and transported one casualty directly to hospital.

In total 21x team members were involved at some stage or other throughout the days 9x incidents, which also involved our four team Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulance Vehicles, and our Team Leader and Deputy Leader responding directly in their appropriately equipped vehicles.

We were able to cope and respond throughtout the day due in a large part to the excellent co operation between the Control Room staff at NWAS (Manchester) Belle Vue Emergency Ambulance Control, and our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE, our Deputy Leader Geoff Seddon, and Call Out list contact Mike Marsh.

Never before have the ice axes / ice hammers, snow shovels, metal shovels, and brushes carried routinely on our Team Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulances, combined with our powerful vehicle mounted winches, seen so much use in winter.
As for our team members equipped with crampons in totally urban situations, well you had to be there.

Since Christmas Eve, Thursday 24th December 2009, we have attended 14x seperate incidents, all for NWAS (Manchester), all due to the wintry conditions prevailing.