High drama for our mountain rescuers

A training exercise for Oldham’s mountain rescue heroes was filled with high drama over the weekend.

Thirty-two specialist rescuers from across the UK and Ireland, including police, attended Oldham Mountain Rescue Team’s crag rescue seminar on the moors above Dovestone.

But on Saturday, they were called in to help the Woodhead team searching with their dogs for walkers lost in the Wessenden area off the A635 Greenfield-Holmfirth Road.

One of the search dogs made a find and a member of the mountain rescuers went in to ‘walk off’ three men in their early 20s from Oxford who had got lost on their second day on the Pennine Way.

On Sunday, just as the training session was ending and they were to have lunch, they got a call from an injured 15-year-old boy.

He was part of a group of four Stockport schoolchildren on an expedition.

Mountain rescue spokesman Denzil Broadhurst said: “We were already near Chew Reservoir, so in about 30 minutes we were on the scene near Laddow Rocks with a group of our team members, plus some of the Kinder and Derby members attending our weekend course.

“The lad had injured his ankle, was in significant pain and was unable to walk. The injury was splinted, pain relief given and then the one- hour stretcher carry back to Chew Reservoir got him to the waiting ambulance. The other three lads were driven back to Crowden Hostel, where their teachers were waiting.

“It was all over in two hours then it was back to the crag rescue work.

“It was a case of being in the right place at the right time. We are glad everything worked out satisfactorily.”

The team, have held their specialist weekend, which covers various rope rescue techniques and equipment, since 1981.

So far this year they have turned out to 73 incidents and last year they attended a total 123 — a record number.

In January, they attended 55, working round the clock supporting emergency services saving injured and trapped people.