At 19:35 the team was contacted by a GMP Search Manager to provide immediate assistance to an urgent category profiled missing person. The 52 year old man involved had disappeared whilst undergoing treatment for a serious medical condition at 02:30 this morning. Police investigations had commenced into the man’s disappearance with checks of the hospital grounds being carried out by Hospital security staff and GMP officers. By early evening the man’s disappearance warranted a larger scale search, principally of the land between Royal Bolton Hospital and the man’s home address in the nearby Morris Green area of Bolton.

27 Bolton team members made a very quick response to the search RVP setup within the main car park area of the Royal Bolton Hospital, and because of the urgency of the search and the large tract of land that had to be covered, an assistance call was made to our colleagues in Rossendale & Pendle Mountain Rescue Team, who responded with 9 members.

The Control Point & Bolton MRT getting their briefing by the TL

The search took place on open farmland, farm tracks and along hedgerows including small copses, aided in its initial searched by the GMP ASU Helicopter. By midnight all taskings given to the two mountain rescue teams had been completed with an intense search area debrief following. Our last personnel left the search RVP at Royal Bolton Hospital at 01:30 on the morning of Wednesday 5th July.

During the search the control and co-ordination of all the search assets was by the Bolton MRT in cooperation with two GMP Search Managers. (Other than the Police helicopter, no other Police search assets were deployed during the evening). The Bolton team also provided full catering for all persons involved in the search, including two visiting reporters from the Bolton Evening News.

GMP enquiries are continuing into the disappearance of this man.