At circa 14.22hrs this afternoon, our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE was contacted directly by NWAS (Greater Manchester Area) Control to mobilise the team to an incident in the Kersal Vale area of Prestwich, Manchester.

An NWAS (Greater Manchester Area) Emergency Ambulance had been called to an incident involving a woman dog walker who had fallen injuring her ankle, and upon arrival at the incident location, immediately requested the assistance of the Bolton MRT due to the physical location of the woman. (The responding NWAS Paramedic was co-incidentally a member of Oldham MRT)

A full team call out page was made at 14.27hrs, with our first team member, Craig Lamb, arriving at the NWAS Ambulance RVP off Kersall Road, Prestwich, at 14.53hrs to meet one of the NWAS Emergency Ambulance crew members, waiting to guide us to the casualty site.

Our Team Leader arrived on scene at 15.00hrs with our BM2 vehicle arriving at 15.04hrs, BM3 at 15.06hrs and BM1 at 15.07hrs.

The 79 year old woman involved, whilst out walking her dog and her 16 year old Grandson, had slipped at the bottom of a steep wooded slope, and had suffered a suspected dislocated ankle.

Conditions at the time of her accident and during her subsequent rescue were very heavy rainfall, and despite it only being mid afternoon it was actually quite dark. (Thankfully the temperatures were very mild at 14C and the wooded nature of the area protected her and her Grandson from the worst of the rain)
Her Grandson had initially ran to seek help from passers by on the nearby main road, but despite his distress and attempts to flag down passing motorists for help sadly nobody stopped, so he ran to the nearest phone to call 999.

He then went back to comfort his Grandmother upto the arrival of NWAS, then stayed with her during her rescue. (Ultimately accompanying her to hospital in the NWAS Emergency Ambulance)

The NWAS Emergency ambulance crew splinted her injured ankle and the fifteen team members present then carried her on a Bell Mountain Rescue Stretcher the 500 metres back to the waiting Ambulance, negotiating on route a steep very muddy and slippy wooded slope.

At 15.32hrs with the rescue complete, the NWAS Emergency Ambulance left en route for Salford Hope Hospital.

By 15.47hrs all Bolton MRT members had departed the RVP with some returning straight back to work, albeit at this stage a little muddy and quite wet!