Three Shires Head, off the A54, east of Macclesfield Forest, Cheshire

  • Call out for year: 32 and 33
  • Date: 12/07/20
  • Time: 3:11 pm
  • Grid ref: SK 00514 69258
  • Type of incident: Walker Injured(2)
  • Team members involved: 26
  • Time taken: 3 hours and 53 minutes
  • Total man hours: 101 hours

Incident report

As the previous callout on Shutlingsloe, above Macclesfield Forest was closing, the team received a call to assist the North West Ambulance Service in the area of Three Shires Head.

Whilst deploying to Three Shires Head, a further call came in to assist Edale Mountain Rescue Team, with an incident at Hollins Cross in the Hope Valley (details to follow). For a short time, we had three live call outs on the go, which temporarily required some quick decision making and stretched our resources.

Team members quickly arrived at the Three Shires Head. A gentlemen enjoying the summer weather had tripped and sustained injuries to his head, ribs and shoulder after falling into the River Dane. Working with the ambulance crews, the casualty was placed on the team’s stretcher and transferred half a mile up hill to the awaiting ambulance for further assessment and onward journey to hospital.

Whilst this incident was under way, a lady approached team members asking for assistance with her son who had injured his ankle down near Pannier’s Pool. Team members not involved with the previous stretcher carry out had assessed his injury and requested the stretcher party to return to the site for a second carry out.

After the previous casualty was placed into the ambulance, the team members quickly turned around and backtracked with the appropriate equipment to the second casualty.

The casualty was placed on the team’s stretcher and transferred the half a mile to the awaiting ambulance, which was positioned on the A54.

Between and after each of the Three Shires Head incidents, equipment was cleaned in line with the Covid-19 protocols.

The team wish both casualties speedy recoveries.

Most team members had been involved in all three of the call outs in the Macclesfield area as they had come in one after the other, for nearly 7 hours, with 3 difficult stretcher carries. This was in addition to the early morning call out to Kinder, (see previous call out) and a further call out to assist Edale Mountain Rescue Team on the hills above Castleton, which was dealt with by team members not involved in the Macclesfield call outs.

On a day when 5 call outs tested us, and especially under the current covid-19 situation, we would also like to invite you to join us in saying a BIG thank you to all of our team members for their dedication and professionalism.

24/7 100% volunteers !

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