Whilst providing standby rescue cover for the annual Aggies Staircase Fell Race in very wet conditions, (Which the photographs accompanying this report hardly shows!) we were alerted at 19.50hrs to an accident to a competitor taking part in the event.

A 56 year old experienced male competitor, (From Lostock Hall, Preston) had stumbled at the head of Stepback Brook,where the track descends in to the valley from Darwen Moor, sustaining a painful non weight bearing ankle injury.

Team members nearby were able to respond immediately arriving at the casualty site at 19.55hrs, with rescue kit being despatched from nearby team vehicles parked at the head of Stepback Brook in the valley bottom.

The runner who was in very good spirits, despite his injury and the rain, was assessed by team members and treated for a suspected ankle fracture.

At 20.12hrs a short mountain rescue stretcher carry saw the man with his ankle splinted in a specialist vacuum splint, transported off the top of the moor down to a waiting team Land Rover, where with increasing pain he requested Entonox pain killing gas.

Our Land Rover ‘BM4’ then transported the injured male down to the Royal Arms Public House / Roddlesworth Information Centre, where at 20.33hrs he was transferred to an NWAS (Lancashire) Emergency Ambulance, which took him to Blackburn Hospital.

Out of the twenty six team members involved in providing standby rescue cover this evening, fourteen were directly involved in this rescue and stretcher evacuation.

Somehow one relatively simple rescue resulted in a huge amount of totally soaked wet through rescue equipment, still drying at our Ladybridge hall Base / HQ on Friday evening, 22nd June!