At 18.53hrs early this evening we were paged by NWAS (Manchester) Control for assistance with an incident in the Porter’s Wood area of Gathurst / Kitt Green, Wigan, with the report of an injured male in woodland down an embankment.

By 19.00hrs a full team call out had been initiated along with drivers for three of our Team Land rover MR Ambulances being mobilsed.

Whilst responding to this incident, NWAS (Manchester) Control constantly updated our Team Leader and responding vehicles with details of the RVP, which was within the Heinz factory complex at Kitt Green, Wigan, where their staff had enabled the responding NWAS (Manchester) Ambulance crews to gain access via the complex, to the woodlands immediately adjacant to the rear of the factory.

Initially an NWAS (Manchester) RRV had arrived closely followed by an NWAS (Manchester) Emergency Ambulance, with the Ambulance crews establishing the injured mans location and dealing with his injury.

Our first team member arrived on scene at 19.30hrs, establishing contact with the NWAS personnel, and finding out that a 36 years old male was injured, after apparently having fallen from a rope swing.

Our Team vehicles arrived on scene at 19.41hrs and 19.45hrs, with all members present attending the incident scene, within the wooded valley of Ackhurst Brook, within Porter’s Wood, Gathurst / Kitt Green.

A stretcher evacuation of the injured male, who had suffered a lower leg injury, commenced out of the woods at 19.53hrs, with the casualty being evacuated to the NWAS Ambulance RVP within the Heinz factory, which then departed for Wigan Hospital at 20.13hrs.

Thanks are expressed here to the Site Security and Gatehouse staff at the Heinz (Kitt Green) Factory complex for their considerable help and advice in accessing the casualty site, and ’putting up with us’ arriving en masse within what is a very large and busy industrial complex. (and no we didn’t get any free baked beans!)

The following resources were involved in this incident;

• NWAS (Manchester) Belle Vue Emergency Control Centre.
• NWAS (Manchester) Rapid Response vehicle and one crew member.
• NWAS (Manchester) 2x Emergency Ambulances, and five crew members, including a student Paramedic ’observing’ on the second vehicle.
• Bolton MRT, 3x Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulances, 21x Team members on scene and 4x other team members stood down whilst responding to the incident.

The whole incident was concluded at 21.00hrs with the return of all our team vehicles to our two team vehicle garage locations.