At 12:58 today, with several team members already on standby at our Ladybridge Hall Base/HQ, the team was contacted by NWAS (Manchester) Emergency Operations Centre who were requesting our assistance following the report of an injured male in playing fields at Eagley Brook, Bolton.

An 18 year old male had been sledging down a fairly steep hill near to the banks of Eagley Brook, and had injured himself after falling from the sledge, coming to rest on the flat playing fields below.

An NWAS Emergency Ambulance was despatched to the incident, along with the North West Air Ambulance Helimed 72, and two fully crewed Bolton MRT Land Rover ambulances. (Coincidentally one of the two crew members on the NWAS Emergency Ambulance was a former Bolton MRT team member, Iain Peel)

The injured male was treated for spinal injuries (due to the nature of the accident) by the NWAS crew, and given painkilling gas. He was then loaded onto a Mountain Rescue stretcher.

At the same time, reports of a second sledging accident, this time in Rivington were passed to the crew of Helimed 72, and it was determined that the injured male at Eagley Brook could be taken to hospital by land ambulance. Due to the large number of members of public present, team members assisted the crew of Helimed 72 by marshalling the helicopter as it took off from the playing fields. Following the departure of the aircraft, team members then carried the injured male some 250m to the waiting NWAS Emergency Ambulance, for onward transport to Royal Bolton Hospital.

NWAA Helimed 72 departs for the other sledging incident in Rivington

Once the team’s equipment had been packed away, the team contacted the NWAS Emergency Operations Centre at Broughton, Preston, who immediately tasked us to attend the sledging incident in Rivington (see the above incident report 15/2013)