Busy Christmas for mountain rescue volunteers (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Busy Christmas for mountain rescue volunteers

2:40pm Sunday 27th December 2009

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(2)

MOUNTAIN rescue volunteers have had one of their busiest weeks on record as they have rode to the rescue of icebound ambulance patients across East Lancashire.

Hundreds of man hours have been clocked up by the Rossendale and Pendle team, based in Haslingden, since the cold snapped gripped the area more than a week ago.

Treacherous road conditions have often left 999 crews, dispatched by the North West Ambulance Service, unable to maneouvre.

And when that occurs mountain rescue crews step in, either transporting a casualty to a nearby ambulance or coming to the aid of paramedics trapped by snow and ice.

Team leader Andy Simpson said: “It is just a case of ambulances not being able to reach certain locations because of the weather.

“We have been on standby for more than a week and must have had between 35 and 40 incidents. Some times when we have been on the way back from one incident, we will be asked to help out at another.”

Mr Simpson said that crews had been regularly located at the team’s base in Clegg Street, Haslingden, and at Burnley’s ambulance station, off Trafalgar Street.

Dozens of incidents, from as far afield as Trawden and Colne, to all parts of the Rossendale valley, were tackled during these periods.

Even on Christmas Day there was no let-up, as a crew was first called out to help a stranded ambulance in Heywood and was then diverted to another incident in Rochdale, where a patient was trapped on board an icebound vehicle.

Boxing Day saw similar incidents attended by volunteers in Bacup and Accrington.

The work has been conducted alongside the mountain rescue service’s regular commitments, with volunteers still finding time to offer support to the Whinberry Naze fell race at Marl Pits in Rawtenstall last weekend.

Another more conventional call involved crews coming to the aid of a 41-year-old woman who had twisted her knee while walking on moorland near Clough Bottom Reservoir at Weir.

The mountain rescue service is entirely voluntary aided and recently benefitted from a £21,750 cheque from the Gannet Foundation, run by the parent company of the Lancashire Telegraph, which will pay for new equipment.

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(2)