At 20:55, the Greater Manchester Police Force Duty Officer directly contacted our Team Leader to request the urgent assistance of the team regarding the initial stages of an incident in the vicinity of the Wilton Quarries complex to the North of Bolton.

At 21:04, the whole team was paged for an urgent response to rendezvous at the Wilton Arms Public House on Belmont Road, and meet police officers on scene.

Our Deputy Team Leader Geoff Seddon was the first team member to arrive on scene at 21:18 establishing a revised rendezvous point on Scout Road, directly adjacent to Wilton One quarry.

Police officers were already on scene dealing with a man in his early forties at the top of Wilton One quarry.

Other team members were quickly on scene with our BM3 vehicle arriving at 21:23, BM1 arriving at 21:30, and BM2 at 21:35.

Greater Manchester Police negotiators were talking with the man, whilst other police officers stood by at various points around the quarry.

Team members at the Scout Road holding point made ready for immediate use a wide range of equipment to deal with all possible outcomes including the possibilities of a technical crag rescue.

With darkness approaching, Police negotiators, Police officers and our Deputy Team Leader Geoff Seddon all succeeded in getting the man to a safe position. Our Deputy Leader Geoff Seddon then abseiled a short distance down the top of the quarry and with assistance of other team members via a simple rope haul system, assisted the man to the top of the quarry.

By 22:30 the man was in a place of safety but due to the cold (and cramp) a stretcher evacuation to a waiting NWAS (Manchester) Emergency Ambulance was required.

At circa 23:00 the ambulance left for Royal Bolton Hospital with the man on board. All Police, Ambulance and Mountain Rescue resources left the scene by 23:35.

This was a carefully coordinated incident with a successful outcome, with all three services involved working in close harmony, utilising all their various professional skills to bring about the safe conclusion.

The following resources were involved in this incident:

• Greater Manchester Police
  • Divisional resources
  • Force Negotiation Officers
• NWAS (Manchester)
  • One Emergency Ambulance, two crew
  • One Rapid Response vehicle, solo crewed
• Bolton Mountain Rescue Team
  • 28 team members on scene (including our team Doctor)
  • 3 team Land Rover Ambulances
  • Our Team Leader and Deputy Team Leader’s vehicles.
  • (the team also provided incident scene lighting and assisted the Police with traffic duties on the busy night-time section of Scout Road)