At 09.18hrs this morning our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE received a direct call from NWAS (Manchester) Emergency Control Centre, just in advance of their pager call out to the team at 09.19hrs, regarding the teams immediate assistance with an incident in the Blackford Bridge area of Bury.

NWAS (Manchester) had responded to the report of an injured male, to discover a 40 years old male at the bottom of the very steep river banking of the River Roch just off Roach Street in the Blackford Bridge area of Bury, requiring our specialist steep ground rescue assistance.

A full, detailed, team pager call out was made at 09.26hrs, with our first team member Steve Nelson, arriving at the Incident RVP at 09.45hrs to immediately start liaising with the NWAS Emergency Ambulance crew from Ramsbottom Ambulance Station, who had responded to this incident.

The injured man, who had also been in the River Roch for a while, had suffered a very serious leg fracture which was treated by the NWAS crew, with two of our members, Team Doctor Clare Whitney and team opiate trained casualty carer Mark Scott also joining the NWAS crew to offer various pain relief to the casualty, including Entonox gas, and powerful pain killing drugs.

The casualty was initially placed on a ambulance scoop stretcher, with his injured right leg splinted, then placed onto a mountain rescue ’Bell MR Stretcher’, very difficult given the casualty was at the bottom of a steep slope immediately alongside the River Roch.

The casualty site.

A double rope assisted haul was then made to get the stretcher party and the casualty back up the slope, where he was transferred into the NWAS Ambulance at 10.48hrs for onward transfer to Bury Hospital.

Team Training Officer Andy Ryding checks the rope safety system.

Throughout this rescue all team members taking part were wearing their team issue PFDs – personal flotation devices or life jackets to our readers – helmets and harnesses.

Our Team Doctor accompanied the casualty to hospital, assisting the NWAS Ambulance crew with his continuing treatment en route to hospital.
In total 20x Bolton MRT team members and our four team Mountain Rescue Landrover Ambulances attended this incident, with 4x other members stood down responding.

Alongside the NWAS (Manchester) Emergency Ambulance, a small number of GMP Police Officers also attended. The team would like to take this opportunity to thank the residents of ’Riverside Cottage’ and ’Nr 22 Roach Street’ with putting up with us trampling through their riverside gardens to effect this rescue, and for all our vehicles and commotion disrupting their Valentines Day morning lie in !