At 10:40 this morning we were paged by NWAS (Manchester) regarding an incident in the Moses Gate Country Park area of Farnworth, Bolton.

NWAS (Manchester) Control had received a 999 call regarding an injured mountain biker with a serious leg fracture.

After a futher call from NWAS updating our Team Leader with more information on this incident, a full team pager call was made at 10:48. At circa 10:55 our Team Leader arrived at the Loxham Street main entrance to Moses Gate Country park to meet the responding NWAS emergency ambulance which could not access the main country park due to the height restriction barrier.

Our Team Leader transported the two ambulance crew to the farthest roadhead possible by the “Red Bridge” over the River Croal, at the rear of Rock Hall information centre.

Our Team Leader, Garry Rhodes and the two ambulance crew, who had been directed to this RVP by one of the injured mountain biker’s colleagues then walked to the incident site in the wooded tracks on the opposite bank of the River Croal.

An NWAS response Paramedic who had arrived earlier had splinted the injured mountain biker’s very seriously fractured right leg and all awaited the arrival of the main MRT response, following which a half kilometre stretcher evacuation took place, with the casualty arriving at the emergency ambulance by 11:31.

The 38 year old very experienced mountain biker from Swinton had been riding with his brother and a mutual friend, both also very experienced mountain bikers, when he had this serious accident.

Team member Dave Marsh was able to transport one of the mountain bikers and the three bikes to the nearby Clifton home of one of the party, whilst the brother of the injured biker accompanied him to hospital.

In total, 13 team members and two of our Landrover Mountain Rescue ambulances attended this incident with a further two team members stood down responding.
NWAS resources included a response vehicle, solo crewed, and an emergency ambulance. The paramedic on the ambulance was also involved in 63/2009 on Tuesday 18th August, this being the second time we’d worked with him in a week!

As we were packing away kit from this incident, we received the second callout of the day to respond to an NWAS (Lancashire) accident, see the next article for details.