Early this evening, our Team Leader was contacted by Greater Manchester Police with the request for assistance in the search for a missing male in the Monton/Eccles area.

An abandoned vehicle had been found in the difficult to access scrubland of the Ellesmere Park area of Eccles, and along with other information known to the Police at the time, there was concern for the welfare of the male belived to have driven it to the point where it was found.

Following a callout message at 17:38, 19 team members assembled at the search RVP along with members of a Greater Manchester Police Tactical Aid Unit, for the purposes of searching the dense scrubland and wooded areas of the land surrounding the vehicle in Ellesmere Park. A detailed line search of the area began with both the GMP and Bolton MRT teams working as one.

At around 21:00 in the evening, information came through to the Police of a possible sighting of the missing person at a location some distance from the area of the search – but pending confirmation of this sighting, the search continued.

Both the Bolton MRT and GMP TAU teams were stood down at approximately 21:25 with the news that the missing person had made contact with Greater Manchester Police himself, with confirmation that he was not located in the area that we were searching.

In total 20 Bolton MRT members assisted on this search with 4 team vehicles plus the team’s control trailer. Resources from GMP included the Tactical Aid Unit from Tyldesley, GMP police dog units, and numerous GMP Divisional resources.

The team members present would like to make a special thanks to one resident in the area, who kindly filled up the team’s hot water flasks from their own kettle, following a spillage in transport – our quick brew making kit is somewhat useless without hot water!

Whilst team members were returning to base through Monton, some team vehicles stopped to asssit at a roadside incident where an elderly man had fallen onto the pavement and had sustained a head injury. Due to the nature of the injury an ambulance was called and the team members handed the casualty over to the care of the responding NWAS crew, who transferred the patient to Hope Hospital. (This “small” incident hasn’t been recorded in the team’s overall incident statistics).