A MAJOR rescue operation was launched after a pensioner collapsed and died while out walking.

Paramedics from both the North West Ambulance Service service and the North West Air Ambulance attended the scene near Belmont alongside the Bolton Mountain Rescue team.

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The 73-year-old man died at the scene after suffering a suspected heart attack when he collapsed just before 2pm on Sunday.

The emergency services were called to the scene on moorland in Spitlers Edge, which lies above Horden Stoops, on the high point between Rivington and Belmont.

In total, 19 members of the mountain rescue team joined the operation alongside paramedics.

The pensioner had been walking with ten others who had carried out continuous resuscitation on him while waiting for the emergency services to arrive.

Members of all teams took part in providing CPR, while drugs were also administered to the man by a doctor travelling with the air ambulance team.

The walker’s companions were escorted down to Horden Stoops as their friend’s body was brought down off the moor on a stretcher by mountain rescue team members, who arrived at the Horden Stoops roadside car park at 3pm.

A spokesman for the mountain rescue team said: “The team all wish to express their sincere condolences to the wife, family and walking companions of the man involved.

“Every member of the team is a hill walker as well so the fact that a fellow walker has died is something that is also upsetting to us.

“You don’t go out for a walk with a group of friends and expect to come back with one less.

“Out sympathies go out to the walkers and his family.”

​The ten walking companions of the deceased man, all from an organised walking group from Cheshire, were then taken by Lancashire Police to their vehicles, which were parked at Abbey Village.

A spokeswoman for the North West Ambulance Service said: “We were called to the scene in Belmont at 1.44pm on Sunday.

“The mountain rescue team were all in attendance at Spitless Edge in Belmont Road.

“An ambulance took a male patient to the Royal Blackburn Hospital.”

Bowland Pennine mountain rescue team were also mobilised to the incident by Lancashire Police but were stood down during the early stages of responding.