On Sunday 5th February 2012, six Team Call Out list members were involved in directly assisting two NWAS (Manchester) 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) We subsequently 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.

On Monday 5th March 2012, the team welcomed to its Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ, Mr Andrew (Andy) Sharman husband of the late Jean Sharman, family members and friends, who all came along to hand over a substantial donation of £1065.00 raised in the memory of Jean Sharman.

It was with great pleasure that on Sunday 29th April 2012, we again welcomed Andy who called in during our base and vehicle cleaning day along with his sister Pam, niece Julie and great nephew Johnathon. Julie works at the Co-operative Store in Adlington, where with the kind support and permission of the management and staff she organised an Easter Egg Raffle. The prizes included a variety of Easter Eggs including one very large egg which caught the attention of the stores customers. A fantastic £257.00 was raised for Bolton MRT from the raffle and Julie brought the money along on Sunday 29th April. Andy also brought along two further cheques totalling £70.00 which he had received for the team in Jean’s memory.

In total £1,392.00 was raised in memory of the late Mrs Jean Sharman, and in agreement with Andy, it was decided to use this fantastic donation to purchase two new full length specialist vacuum mattress splints for the team.

In talking with Andy and his family, we also mentioned that although a great amount of donations to the team ultimately go on ‘operational equipment,’ we also have to fund occasional ‘domestic equipment’ for use at our Base / HQ such as kettles, crockery, washing consumables and the like.

We mentioned to Andy that both our vacuum cleaners (One having been previously donated brand new by Andrew Rhodes, the brother of our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE, and the other, second hand by Garry himself) were in need of replacement, with one being needed for our Base / HQ carpets and one primarily for our vehicles (with a wet / dry function)

Andy kindly gave his agreement to this part use of the donations to his late wife’s memory, and on Sunday 23rd September 2012, we announced via our website, the purchase of two new vacuum cleaners at a cost of £275.98p against this kind donation.

Today we received in to team service, two brand new specialist full length Vacuum Mattress Splints, supplied by Snowsled Polar Limited, of Marketplace Mews, Tetbury, Gloucestershire. (www.snowsled.com)

The full purchase cost of these items at £1,063.75p has been made using the remainder of the donation monies made in memory of the Late Mrs Jean Sharman.

The team would like to extend its thanks to Roger Daynes of Snowsled Limited for his recent help and advice regards the purchase of these two items.

Both these Vacuum Mattresses (Which are in widespread use by MRTs and are not carried by NWAS Emergency Ambulances) will replace two older models in the Bolton MRT, originally issued to the team by what was at the time the Mountain Rescue Council of England and Wales (Our parent body, now known as Mountain Rescue England and Wales – MREW) in 1995, and 29th September 2003 (See website ‘news’ report dated 29th September 2003)

The two new Vacuum Mattresses will ‘join’ two other Vacuum Mattresses, one donated by MREW to the team on 31st October 2011, and one purchased by the team via MREW on the same date for £488.20p, again both made by Snowsled Limited.

All four of our Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulance vehicles now have the latest generation model of full length Vacuum Mattress Splint carried on board, with a history of using such an item of the team going back over seventeen years.

The team would like to once again acknowledge the kindness of all who made donations in memory to Jean Sharman, that has enabled this new vital equipment purchase to be made by the team.

Please also see website ‘news’ reports dated Sunday 5th February, Thursday 16th February, Monday 5th March, Sunday 29th April and Sunday 23rd September, all 2012.