In the early hours of this morning heavy snowfalls started in the Greater Manchester and Lancashire areas, steadily worsening as the early morning commuter traffic started. Traffic soon ground to a halt in the snow and icy road conditions, with gridlock or at the least, very slow moving traffic occuring.

At 07:46hrs we received an initial call from NWAS (Manchester) stating our services may be required to assist the Ambulance Service with the difficulties they were experiencing with the very wintry conditions.

In constant liaison with NWAS (Manchester) Emergency Control Centre, our Team Leader answered a call to mobilise the team at 09:09hrs.

Around this same time, NWAS (Manchester) ECC had also mobilsed our colleagues at Oldham MRT, Rossendale and Pendle MRT and Glossop MRT to deal with a large number of incidents arising from the wintry weather throughout Greater Manchester. (with R&P MRT also being mobilised to incidents in Lancashire).

No different to all the other motorists on the snowbound roads, our members experienced huge difficulties in getting to our two garage locations to respond in our emergency vehicles, with many having to abandon their attempts to get to our vehicle garages at Bolton Central Fire Station and Ladybridge Hall.

Eventually 8x team members were able to crew 3x of our Landrover Mountain Rescue Ambulances, but as conditions improved slightly the requirement for our services lessened.

Two emergencies were responded to by the team, Incident 117, in Blackrod, Bolton, a male experiencing chest pains, who was treated and transported to hospital in one of our Landrovers, and Incident 118, a woman suffering from angina, in the Hall’ i’ th’ Wood area of Bolton, who was also transported to hospital in one of our Landrovers.

At 13:35hrs the team was stood down by NWAS (Manchester) ECC as road conditions had by now (at least in the immediate area) improved considerably.