At 12.50hrs early this sunny and warm afternoon, we were paged by NWAS (Manchester) EOC Parkway, for our assistance with the evacuation of an injured dog walker in the Radcliffe area.

The 48 years old woman involved, from Radcliffe, had been walking her dog on open land north of the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal off Cams Lane, Radcliffe, when the dog ran back to the her causing her to stumble and sustain a very painful right knee injury, which was initially reported as a dislocated knee, and was non weight bearing.

A responding NWAS Emergency Ambulance was first on scene, and an initial request was made for the NWAA Helimed, which was not available. (Being tasked elsewhere)

NWAS (Manchester) EOC then requested NWAS HART and ourselves to attend.

Our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE answered the call, gathered more information on the likely RVP and paged out a full team call out at 12.58hrs.

At this stage one vehicle, our BM4 was immediately available and responded at 13.01hrs, followed by our BM2 vehicle going mobile at 13.08hrs.

Our first team member, Samantha McKay arrived at the Ambulance RVP off Sion Street / Mount Sion Road at 13.20hrs and by 13.25hrs was at the casualty site meeting with the NWAS Emergency Ambulance crew who had stabilised the woman’s knee injury, who was also on pain killing gas.

At 13.25hrs our BM4 vehicle arrived at the RVP in the company of one of the responding NWAS HART vehicles (Solo crewed by NWAS HART member Peter Goble, who also happens to be the Team Leader of Rossendale and Pendle MRT!)

Meanwhile our BM2 vehicle had arrived on Cams Lane itself and approached the casualty site from a different direction.

By 13.40hrs our Team Leader and other members were at the casualty site (Webmaster; Our Team Leader actually carrying the Bell Stretcher – along with Trainee member Martin Battersby, to the casualty site!) joining the NWAS crew and responding NWAS HART personal.

The woman was placed on to our Bell Mountain Rescue Stretcher, and at 13.53hrs an evacuation over the fields commenced, with team members aided by the NWAS members on scene and three responding Police Officers. (Webmaster; even our Team Leader was spotted carrying the loaded stretcher!)

By 14.00hrs the woman was receiving further treatment in the NWAS Emergency Ambulance, which departed shortly afterwards for Bury Fairfield Hospital.

The woman involved though in a great deal of pain, was smiling throughout, and commented on our ‘banter,’ no doubt the Entonox was working its magic!

By 14.31hrs all our responding vehicles had left the location heading back for our garage locations.

This incident was yet another excellent example of joint Bolton MRT / NWAS / NWAS HART / GMP emergency response successful working.

The following resources were involved in this incident;

• NWAS (Manchester) EOC Parkway, Control Room.
• NWAS (Manchester) Emergency Ambulance and two crew members from Blackrod Ambulance Station.
• NWAS HART, from Trafford Park, Manchester, four responding vehicles including their Polaris ATV and its transporter, four HART team members, including Peter Goble (Who alongside his full time NWAS employment is also the Team Leader of Rossendale and Pendle MRT)
• Greater Manchester Police; 3x Officers all from Bury Police Station.
• Bolton Mountain Rescue Team; Eleven Team Call Out list members on scene, and our Mountain Rescue Land Rover Ambulances ‘BM2’ and ‘BM4.’

And for anybody wondering, the woman’s dog which started all this, was taken home by the woman’s son!