With six team members at our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ and NWAS (Manchester) aware of this, (Given the wintry and very snowy ground conditions prevailing) at 12.17hrs we were called out to assist two NWAS Rapid Response Vehicle crews at an incident adjacent to Bradshaw Cricket Club.

A lady had suffered a very serious medical collapse in the upstairs of a cottage, and with the access track to the property being covered in snow and ice, Emergency Ambulance access would have been very problematical.

All six members, in three Team Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulances responded, with our BM3 / 4 vehicles arriving on scene at 12.35hrs closely followed by our BM1 vehicle at 12.40hrs.

The very ill lady involved was moved from her bedroom on one of our MIBs specialist stretchers, with the NWAS staff and team members carefully manoeuvring her down the steep cottage stairwell.

She was then placed on an Alpine Lite Mountain Rescue Stretcher and placed in the rear of our BM3 vehicle, which immediately left at 13.10hrs for Royal Bolton Hospital, with one of the NWAS RRV Paramedics also travelling in our vehicle.

Part way through this rescue, our BM1 vehicle with team members Craig Lamb (Chairman) and Garry Rhodes (Team Leader) had to depart this incident for another incident.

The other four team members involved in this incident were Fred Taylor, Matthew Hailwood, Ken Oakes and Diane Blakeley, who all worked alongside the two NWAS RRV solo crew members, who were delivering expert casualty care.

The team would like to express thanks to the husband of the lady involved, who kindly and very quickly moved household furniture out of the way to enable the evacuation of his wife.

We have since received the following communication from one of the NWAS RRV staff involved; (Who was writing in turn to his Sector Manager):

“I would like to ask if you could pass on thanks to Bolton Mountain Rescue Team.

I attended a job in a Rapid Response Vehicle in Bradshaw. The lady involved was very poorly and lived in a remote cottage, access was very bad due to snow, ice and steep roads. Helimed was offline due to weather.

I requested MR support due to the patient carrying capacity of their 4×4 Land Rover . The lady was moved in their Land Rover to Bolton Hospital.

I thought it would sound better to receive an official thank you from you as Sector Manager as I was working on one of your RRV’s, I did pass on my thanks on the day.

Regards, Team Leader, Hazardous Area Response Team (HART), North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust.“