At 01:11 in the early hours of this morning, with the team already deployed on a search operation (albeit in its concluding stages) the team was paged to attend an incident in the urban situation of Cadishead town centre with the report of a youth who had fallen down a steep slope sustaining possible spinal injuries.

16 team members made an immediate response along with our New Zealand colleague Terry Blumhardt of Turanigi Search & Rescue Team in four team Landrovers.

All arrived on scene at the New Moss Road junction with Liverpool Road, Cadishead at 01:40 to find out that the incident involved an 18 year old youth who had fallen down a steep embankment immediately next to a disused railway line and rail bridge.

Team member Chris Greenhalgh assisted the two NWAS staff on scene and two Police officers with “log rolling” the male youth onto a Longboard.

A very careful and gentle raise of the youth on the Longboard then took place up the short but steep bramble-covered slope that he had been laid on.

Once at the top of the slope he was placed on a Bell Mountain Rescue stretcher and carried the short 100m distance to the waiting ambulance which involved team members, Police and Ambulance staff carefully raising and lowering the stretcher over an 8ft vertical brick wall.

The male casualty was placed in the ambulance at 02:10 hours with all team members leaving the scene by 02:20.

In addition to our 16x members and Terry from New Zealand, the following emergency resources also attended this incident ; an NWAS (Greater Manchester) Emergency Ambulance from Urmston Ambulance station, an NWAS (GM) Operational Duty Manager in a Rapid Response vehicle, and four Greater Manchester Police Officers in two vehicles.