At 13.46hrs our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE was directly contacted by NWAS (Manchester) Emergency Control Centre, for the teams immediate assistance with an incident in the woodlands of Philips Park, Prestwich.

A male mountain biker has sustained a suspected fractured leg, and the on scene NWAS (Manchester) crew had requested mountain rescue to evacuate the male form his location back to their Ambulance.

With all Bolton MRT personnel already deployed providing standby rescue cover for the Rivington Half Marathon and Full Marathon events, (Which were concluding) an immediate response by on scene resources was possible, with our Team Leader despatching two of our vehicles to this incident.

We arrived on scene at the main visitor car park to Philips Park, Prestwich at 14.14hrs, meeting one of the two responding NWAS (Manchester) Ambulance personnel.

We were directed into the dense woodlands, to the incident scene, where a sixteen year old male in the company of his father, had come to grief whilst both were mountain biking on the stone surfaced tracks in the park.

The pair from Ordsall, Salford, had been initially assisted by a passing member of the public who contacted the Ambulance Service.

The 16 year old had his injured leg placed in a ‘box splint’ by the NWAS personnel, and was then stretcher evacuated by Bolton MRT team members on a specialist mountain rescue stretcher back to the Ambulance, arriving there at 14.43hrs, being subsequently taken to Hope Hospital, Salford.

In total nine Bolton MRT members were involved in this straight forward evacuation, having responded in two of our Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulances.

The NWAS (Manchester) Emergency Ambulance crew were from Swinton Ambulance Station, and had previous experience of working with us.

We would like to mention the good humour (Given his predicament) displayed by the injured teenager, and the sincere thanks that were expressed to us and the Ambulance staff by the injured youths father.

As usual we also had excellent directions given to us by NWAS (Manchester) ECC regards which roads and tracks to take to meet up with their responding Emergency Ambulance.