Rescue teams help sledging ‘casualties’

MOUNTAIN rescue volunteers were called to reports of ‘multiple casualties’ following sledging accidents.

Rossendale Pendle Mountain Rescue Team (RPMRT) said they were called to an area off Grane Road in Haslingden at around 3.20pm on Sunday, January 3.

A sledger had reportedly ‘gone feet first’ into a dry stone wall. When volunteers arrived at the scene they found the casualty and their friends ‘showing signs of hypothermia’ and were ‘warmed up’.

A team doctor, along with a North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) paramedic, provided ‘strong pain relief’ for the sledger before they were then ‘packaged and stretchered along the field to a rope system’ to the roadside.

They were taken to Royal Blackburn Hospital by a land ambulance.

Around 10 minutes after the first call RPMRT were made aware of a second sledging incident near Downham, Ribble Valley.

The team said it involved ‘multiple casualties who had also ended up hitting into the dry stone wall at the bottom of the field’.