Just after 11.00hrs this morning, with frosty conditions underfoot, a light snowfall still present in the area and clear blue skies, a 36 years old woman walker, in the company of her partner, whilst out dog walking around the Turton and Entwistle Reservoir, fell sustaining a dislocated knee cap (She informed us she had a previous history of this injury)

Very shortly afterwards at 11.20hrs we were paged to assist at this incident by NWAS EOC Broughton.
Team Call Out Contact Steve Fletcher co –ordinated our response, gaining exact details of the incident location, namely near the ‘Heron’ sculpture on the north shore track of the reservoir.

At 11.30hrs a detailed location was paged out to team members, with team member John Dickinson arriving at the Batridge Road Car Park / Dam at 11.40hrs.

Here John met United Utilities Head Works Controller Paul Mather, who drove John to the incident location via the south shore track (construction operations on the dam itself precluded at this stage direct vehicular access to the north shore) – Paul had previous to John’s arrival already driven to the casualty once, to ascertain the exact location, to then guide in the responding MRT resources.

Circa 11.50hrs John Dickinson was on scene, rendering immediate care, essentially protecting the woman from the cold conditions present.

Our first responding Land Rover of two mobilised, arrived at Batridge Road at 12.00hrs and drove to the casualty site, arriving at 12.10hrs, with thanks to Paul Mather for directing our vehicle.

Pain relief including drugs was administered, including splinting the woman’s very painful injury.

By 12.30hrs our second responding Land Rover was at the casualty site, and the woman was carried a short distance on one of our SAR Alpine Lite Mountain Rescue Stretchers, and placed directly in to the back of our Bolton Mobile 2 Land Rover at 12.46hrs.

By 13.05hrs the woman was transferred in to the care of the responding NWAS Emergency Ambulance crew, who were waiting at Batridge Road / Dam car park.

The woman was then taken for further treatment to Royal Bolton Hospital, with our last personnel leaving the RVP at 13.30hrs.

We were subsequently contacted by the casualty, Gill Lowe of Horwich, who commented on Facebook;

“Thank you so much.

The staff were all amazing and really relaxed me.

I’m now nursing a ruptured knee following a dislocation.

I really can’t thank you enough!

Amazing team x “

The following resources were deployed and involved in this incident;

• NWAS (Lancashire); EOC Broughton Airdesk despatcher.
• NWAS (Greater Manchester); One Emergency Ambulance, with two crew, from Bury Ambulance Station.
• United Utilities; Head Works Controller Paul Mather, and Land Rover.
• Bolton Mountain Rescue Team; Two Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulances, Bolton Mobiles 2 and 4. Nine team operational members on scene, with Steve Fletcher co –ordinating our response from elsewhere.

We would like to thank all the local walkers who kindly allowed us to pass on the very narrow yet driveable by Land Rover, reservoir margin track / footway.

We would also like to thank two passing runners, who kindly assisted us with loading the injured woman in to the back of our Bolton Mobile 2 Land Rover, and went on to warn other walkers that our Land Rover would be passing by with an injured person on  board.

Finally thanks to the construction workers, who partially dismantled their metal safety / works security fencing to allow us to utilise the north shore track to get the casualty back to the Ambulance RVP quicker than using the longer distance southern track around the margin of the reservoir.