At 19.49hrs this sunny evening, we were paged by NWAS (Greater Manchester) Control for the teams assistance with an incident in the Hale Barns area of South Manchester, alongside the River Bollin. An Ambulance crew was on scene with the casualty, but the location was some distance from the nearest road head, and the team was required to stretcher evacuate the person involved.

Our first team member arrived at the Ambulance RVP, on Rossmill Lane, adjacent to Hale Golf Course at 20.20hrs, to liaise directly with one of the two NWAS Emergency mbulance crew involved. At 20.28hrs our 2nd team member arrived at the RVP followed by our Team Leader at 20.30hrs and our Bolton Mobile 1 vehicle at 20.35hrs.

By 20.47hrs our Team Leader and Team Doctor were on scene at the casualty site, on meadowland adjacent the River Bollin near to where it passes under the M56 Motorway. The casualty was a 33 years old male runner, who had “gone over” on his ankle, sustaining a suspected fractured left ankle.

DTL Geoff Seddon, advising MR Control of the situation, whilst Team Doctor Clare Whitney deals with the splinting.

Within ten minutes his ankle injury had been splinted using one of the teams specialist vacuum splints, with the stretcher evacuation on a ’Bell’ mountain rescue stretcher commencing at 20.57hrs.

About to transfer the casualty on to the Bell MR stretcher.

Team members carried the injured man circa 0.85km back to the waiting NWAS Emergency Ambulance, ariving at the Ambulance at 21.12hrs, where he was subsequently taken to Wythenshawe Hospital.

In total 17 Bolton MRT members were involved on scene with this incident, with a further 2x team members stood down responding. The NWAS Emergency Ambulance and crew was from Altrincham Ambulance Station.

As a ’And Finally’ moment, Alan James was recognised by one of the NWAS crew after an incident at Worsley Woods ealier this year, which the Team was called to but stood down, Alan had got to scene by the stand down page.