At 12:07 today,the team was paged by NWAS (Greater Manchester Area) to lend assistance at an incident in the Harwood area of Bolton.

The call was answered by experienced team member Mike Marsh, who promptly called out the rest of the team to assist via a full team pager call out at 12:11.

The incident involved a 32 year old female casualty from the Harwood area who had been walking her dog Poppy in the fields at the rear of Catterall Crescent, Harwood. The NWAS Emergency Ambulance crew had arrived on scene to find the casualty at the bottom of the hill unable to move and in a lot of pain from a knee injury. The NWAS crew then requested assistance from the team to carry the casualty to their Emergency Ambulance which was parked in Catterall Crescent.

Two Bolton MRT Call Out list members (Neil Warburton and Diane Blakeley) arrived at 12:20, both living in the Harwood area they arrived quickly on scene and began to search for the casualty and ambulance crew. They located them at 12:25 over a wall and behind a tree. (The ambulance crew had asked the casualty’s dad to meet the team at the RVP but had told him it might take a little time for us to arrive, so he promptly took Poppy the dog for a walk!)

The NWAS crew had treated the female who had a knee injury after falling over Poppy who had got quite excited running round the hillside in the sunshine. The casualty had already been loaded onto a long board by the NWAS crew and was ready to be moved as soon as there were enough personnel to help pass the stretcher over the stone wall.

Two further team members (Ged Clarke and Trainee Tony Dawson) who also lived in the local area arrived at 12:30, so the four team members with the NWAS crew carried the casualty the short distance to the ambulance. Although only a short carry at times only two people could carry the stretcher as the path leading back to the ambulance was only wide enough to have one person carrying the front of the stretcher and one at the back; luckily the casualty was slim and light, so having only two team members carrying the stretcher was not a problem.

The casualty arrived at the NWAS ambulance at 12:40 as more team members arrived, shortly followed by two team Land Rover Ambulances, which had responded from our Ladybridge Hall Base/HQ and Bolton Fire Station. The casualty was then loaded into the back of the NWAS ambulance.

In total, 13 team members attended this incident, with an additional four team members stood down whilst responding. Team vehicles then made their way back to base, with the incident concluded by 13:07.
(NWAS (Manchester) resources involved an Emergency Ambulance)