Today 3 scouts from the 25th Warrington East Scouts at Grappenhall came to spend the day with the team. The troop had very kindly nominated the team as it’s charity this year and raised over a £1000 for the team by taking part in a sponsored walk with a difference – they were blindfolded! The top 3 fundraisers won an opportunity to come and spend a day with us looking at how mountain rescue works in the UK and what type of kit we carry and use.

The scouts are being given instruction of how to use a mountain rescue stretcher

Following this we all drove to Wilderswood on George’s Lane in Horwich where they practiced map reading and navigation each of them taking in turns to lead a leg of the route. Weather conditions today were interesting but Zak, Miriam and Charlie battled on through rain, sleet and eventually snow.

On the way we took in the delights of the West Pennine moors and met up with the vehicles at the Winter Hill mast where the group was informed they needed to search for an exercise casualty who had been heard shouting for help.  The scouts quickly managed to locate the casualty who was supposed to have sustained an ankle injury.

Here the Scouts have located the exercise casualty and are making an assessment under an emergency shelter

Once an assessment had been done they fitted a vac splint to the “injured ankle” and transferred the casualty into our casualty bag to keep her warm and then onto our mountain rescue stretcher.  While one of the scouts found a route back the the RVP the other 2 along with team members carried the stretcher and casualty even performing a seamless hand over hand movement over a 5 bar gate.

Back at the RVP we released our exercise casualty and packed the vehicles returning to our Ladybridge Hall base for a well deserved albeit late lunch and hot drinks and then we looked at our rope rescue equipment .

Each scout was presented with a goodie bag containing a few things they might find useful oh their upcoming adventure on the Cheshire hike.

All of us at Bolton MRT would like to thank the whole troop for their very kind and generous support without which we would not be able to serve our community.