Our first full team callout of 2016 was initiated today as a result of a request from NWAS Emergency Operations Centre, Broughton.
The team was contacted via SARCALL at 12:50 this afternoon with the report of a male lying injured on moorland near to Piccadilly Farm, just off the A675 and north of Belmont.
Deputy Team Leader Chris Greenhalgh obtained further information from NWAS EOC and mobilised the team via pager at 13:02. The 73 year old male had sustained an ankle injury whilst walking towards Darwen Tower, specifically on the footpath between Great Hill and Piccadilly Farm, some 100m from the road.
An NWAS Emergency Ambulance had been despatched to this incident and arrived at 13:06, and was soon joined by a contingent of Bolton MRT team members & vehicles from 13:20 onwards.
With six team members initially joining the two NWAS crew on the moor, the decision was made to mobilise the North West Air Ambulance via the NWAS Air Desk. Unfortunately, due to low cloud conditions in the area, the available aircraft was unable to attend.
In lieu of the Air Ambulance, the injured male’s ankle was splinted and he was placed on the team’s SAR Alpine Lite stretcher, then into a casualty bag (sleeping bag) to keep warm. The six team members were then joined by a further three at 13:39, and with sufficient personnel present for a relatively short moorland evacuation, the man was carried to the waiting NWAS Ambulance on the A675 by 13:47.
This incident was concluded on scene at 13:58 with the departure of the NWAS Emergency Ambulance for the Royal Blackburn Hospital. Team members left the scene and went on to make arrangements to clean and dry equipment used on today’s incident in time for the next callout.
In total 10 team members were involved in this incident, of whom nine team members attended the scene. Deputy Team Leader Chris Greenhalgh coordinated the rescue from his home address. A further five team members were stood down responding (three of the five had arrived on scene due to their close proximity to the incident at stand-down)
