On Sunday 5th February 2012, six Team Call Out list members; Matthew Hailwood, Fred Taylor, Ken Oakes, Diane Blakeley, our Chairman Craig Lamb and Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE were involved in directly assisting two NWAS Paramedics in the treatment and evacuation of a 60 year old lady, Mrs Jean Sharman from cottages near Bradshaw Cricket Club, Bolton. (Please see Incident Report 16-2012 dated 5th February 2012) During the course of this incident Garry and Craig were redirected by NWAS (Manchester) Control to another separate incident, leaving their four colleagues and the two NWAS Paramedics to continue dealing with this serious medical incident.
On Monday of this week we discovered that Mrs Jean Sharman had unfortunately suffered a serious brain haemorrhage at the time of our involvement and very sadly passed away a few hours later once she had arrived at Royal Bolton Hospital. Her husband Tony sent an e-mail to the team to thank us for our involvement in evacuating his wife Jean to The Royal Bolton Hospital and to invite some members along to a celebration of Jean’s life at Bradshaw Cricket Club following her funeral today.
There follows an account by Team Call Out list member Diane Blakeley of todays celebration of the life of the late Mrs Jean Sharman;
“Today Team Call Out list member Matthew Hailwood and myself who were involved with the incident along with Team Call Out list member Paul Copley attended the celebration. We were greeted by Mr Tony Sharman who was very appreciative of our attendance as well as our role during his wife Jean’s sudden illness. Since this sad incident Tony had been on our web site and was impressed by the range of incidents and events the team is involved with. He introduced us to Jean’s family. She was one of five children, her two brothers and two sisters who were present today, were extremely friendly and thanked us for the assistance we had given Jean and for the fact that we had also taken the time to attend today and pay our respects. One of Jean’s sister is a Nurse in Los Angeles, USA, and we talked to her and her husband, a Doctor, for quite some time as they were extremely interested in the work we do. We also took the time to thank Jean’s neighbour who looked after our rescue equipment whilst we were evacuating Jean from the house along with two NWAS Paramedics who attended. In a strange twist of fate Matthew Hailwood realised a few hours before we attended today that Jean had taught him at Eagley Infant School, a School that she worked at for over 30 years. I discovered whilst I was there that one of my mum’s friend was Jean’s auntie.
As we said our goodbyes we again received lots of thank you’s and hugs as if were old friends of all present. Tony very kindly decided that in lieu of flowers at his wife’s funeral , donations should be made to support the work of the Bolton Mountain Rescue Team. There was also a free bar with people being asked to kindly make a donation to the team in a bucket on the bar instead. We will therefore be seeing Tony again very soon as we invited him and some of Jean’s family to personally handover the donation and have a tour of our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ. He was thrilled to accept our invitation. I will also be taking up Tony’s offer of a seat in ‘The Royal Box’ next time I am down to watch my Godson play cricket at Bradshaw.”
The entire membership of Bolton Mountain Rescue Team would like to take this opportunity to pass on our deepest condolences to Tony and all of Jean’s family and friends over the sad loss of Jean Sharman.
