As this is written at 23.55hrs late this Sunday evening, we can report on the end of a very busy weekend for the Bolton MRT which commenced on Friday afternoon 26th April with a Call Out.
We’ve recorded over this weekend four operational incidents;
- A horse rider with suspected pelvic and spinal injuries, at Elton Reservoir, Bury.
- A dog walker with a dislocated knee at Rivington.
- A search involving our specialist Mountain Rescue Trailing Dog in North East Wales.
- We were stood down responding to the report of a collapsed person with chest pain, in fields in the Ellesmere Park area of Eccles.
We have been on standby to cover the operational area of our colleagues at Rossendale and Pendle MRT over Saturday evening and Sunday morning whilst they attended the wedding of a team member.
Our specialist Mountain Rescue Trailing Dog Handler Steve Nelson, with Trailing Dog Boris, in the company of Elaine Gilliland has been on an NSARDA Training Course all this weekend at the HQ of Bowland Pennine MRT at Smelt Mill in the Trough of Bowland (Interrupted by their journey to North East Wales for Incident 57 and their return back to the course)
Our Trainee Drowned Victim Search Dog Sasha and her Handler Dave Marsh were out training ‘on the water’ on Saturday, alongside colleague Bolton MRT team members Michael Eddleston, Paul Chisholm (With Trainee Air Scenting Dog Bella) and Dave Cook, whilst on Sunday, Dave Marsh and Sasha attended more specialist training at Whitworth.
This morning and continued in to the early afternoon, we have thoroughly washed, and then waxed and polished our four Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulance Vehicles and our Minibus Ambulance, inclusive of a full interior valet.
This afternoon we have been filmed in support of Team Call Out list member Paul Copley’s nomination for the national and very prestigious BT Chairman’s Awards 2013.
Late this afternoon, team members Louise Jorgensen and Mike O’Brien carried out a thorough survey of the window frames, garage doors, roofline and guttering around our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ (We are situated in the stone built two storey high former Stable block / Garage to the Hall) and they then produced initial costings for us to undertake essential maintenance works to keep our Base / HQ in an excellent state of repair.
Also late this afternoon, Team members John Dickinson and Mike O’Brien carried out checks on our Catering Trailer including an external clean.
Team member Naomi Horan and our Equipment Officer (Medical) Nigel Booth spent most of today carrying out an assessment of how best to repackage and carry our Trauma Care, Splintage and Oxygen / Airway equipment, including investigating likely costings.
And just to add to the list all six of our rechargeable Peli RALS 9440 Lights and all twenty of our rechargeable Fire Vulcan LED Hand Search Lamps were put on their periodic discharge / recharge cycle.
Finally Steve Fletcher, one of our two ‘Webmasters’ updated our website, Twitter account and our new Facebook account, alongside our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE writing up the reports for the four incidents of this weekend.
A busy weekend perhaps but not untypical for the ever cheerful, committed and dedicated team members of Bolton Mountain Rescue Team (All of whom are volunteers it should never be forgotten)
