At 00.45hrs in the very early hours of this morning, we were paged by Lancashire Constabulary Force Control Room, regards the teams assistance with an urgent missing person search in Sunnyhurst Wood, Darwen, Lancashire, in circumstances giving the Police concern for his welfare.

Our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE made immediate contact with the Force Incident Manager, whilst our Deputy Team Leader Chris Greenhalgh liaised with fellow Call Out Contacts Mike Marsh and Steve Fletcher to arrange drivers to enable an appropriate quick response to this call.

By 00.53hrs our Deputy Team Leader had paged out to the team to go to immediate standby for this search, with a small number of team members now on route to our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ or preparing to leave home to go to our other vehicle garage locations.

In further liaison calls with Lancashire Constabulary FIM, at circa 00.57hrs, news was received that the missing male had possible been located by an NPAS Helicopter, in the vicinity of a farm building in the area of Sunnyhurst Wood.

At 00.59hrs, a nearby Police patrol met up with this person, confirmed it was the missing man, and transported him to care, and with the team no longer being required, the FIM confirmed our full stand down at 01.00hrs.

A short interruption to our nights (early morning) sleep, a good result for NPAS and Lancashire Constabulary and importantly for the welfare of the missing man.

At this stage a number of team members had declared themselves available.