30. Call out: 31st January 2010
Landrover on the track up to Edale Cross
- Type: Casualty pick up from known location.
- Location: Edale Cross
- Duration: 3 hours
- Team members: 20
- Man hours: 60
Early Sunday morning Darren rang and asked me to take the contact number as he was running in a fell race. He mentioned that he had given our number to the race organiser just in case anything happened as conditions on Kinder were still poor, with lots of snow drifts and patches of ice. Three hours later when my phone rang with the name of the said organiser, it did not take a genius to work out that we were wanted. A runner had torn his hamstring and could not move from his location, which was with 2 of the race marshals at the top of a land rover track up near the summit.
Sounded simple so I sent out a call for a snatch pick up. When our first land rover got to the bottom of that track it became obvious that it was impassable. Time for a quick rethink, and a call for more troops. Reports from the marshals suggested that our runner was getting very cold. Due to the time needed to get people up to him and then to get him down on a stretcher, we started asking for helicopter support. Initially the RAF were coming to us but soon after had to divert to a more serious incident so we were back to plan A – a stretcher carry. Being short of our own troops, I called for assistance from Glossop team. In addition, we rang Ambulance control in the hope of getting an Air Ambulance in to the location. Our luck was in and 15 minutes later an aircraft landed at the cas site to take our runner off to Sheffield.
Neale Pinkerton
Deputy Team Leader
