At the early hour (at least for callouts and our Team Leader! – webmaster) 08:18 we were paged by NWAS (Manchester) ECC regarding assistance needed at an incident immediately to the rear of the Royal Bolton Hospital complex.

A male casualty had been located on the open farmland surrounding the hospital, after having apparently being lain in a shallow water-filled drainage ditch for a period of time.

The team was requested to assist the NWAS crew on scene with the evacuation of this casualty.

A full team pager callout was made at 08:26 with our team leader arriving first on scene at 08:40 hours, meeting the hospital security staff who guided him to the incident location.

Our 3 solo responding Land Rover Ambulances from two team garage locations arrived on scene very quickly with a Mountain Rescue SAR Alpine Lite stretcher dispatched immediately upon the first vehicles arrival.

A combined group of Bolton MRT members (Garry Rhodes, Chris Greenhalgh, Dave Marsh, Gyles Denn and Steve Fletcher), Royal Bolton Hospital Security Staff (Martyn Blackburn, Paul Daniels and Jimmy Binns) and the two NWAS Bolton South Ambulance Station personnel quickly placed the hypothermic male onto the stretcher.

Here events took a unique twist as it as decided given the close proximity of the nearby Accident and Emergency Department, particularly if we used the rear service entrance, that the stretcher evacuation could take place straight from the incident scene directly into the A&E Department, much to the bemusement of arriving hospital staff members.

By circa 09:10 hours the casualty was receiving medical attention for his condition.

One further Bolton MRT member, Steve O’Hara had acted as a guide to the casualty site, with team members John Dickinson and Alistair Greenough both stood down responding.