At 23:24, very late this evening the team was paged by NWAS (Greater Manchester Area) Paramedic Emergency control regarding assistance with an off road bike accident in the Pennington Flash Country Park area.

The pager call was answered by our Team Leader whilst other members commenced a response to our bases to collect vehicles and to the general incident location.

It was very quickly established that there was sadly a fatality, with another casualty involved suffered various injuries.

Our response on behalf of the ambulance service was stood down, changing to a body recovery operation for Greater Manchester Police.

It appears that in the late hours of the evening a 23 year old male and a 27 year old male were riding an off-road motorbike on the tracks of the Pennington Flash Country Park. In doing so, the motorbike collided with a metal gate in the middle of the track.

The 23 year old suffered a minor facial injury and a suspected leg and hand fracture. The 27 year old male suffered severe head injuries (and was subsequently pronounced dead on scene).

The 23 year old male involved in this accident contacted the emergency services, which resulted in an intense police and ambulance search operation to locate the exact whereabouts of the pair, with the team being considered for this search, the pair were discovered by the GMP Air Support Unit helicopter which directed ambulance staff and police officers to the scene.

It was at this stage that were contacted by Ambulance Control.

Just after midnight a full team callout was instigated to recover the body of the 27 year old man.

In total 24 team members responded, initially providing lighting for the Police investigation team.

At approximately 01:45, an evacuation of the male’s body commenced, to the police & ambulance RVP on Slag Lane, in the Plank area of Pennington Flash, Leigh.

Team members tidying kit away after this incident.

By 02:30 in the morning of Tuesday 29th April, the body recovery operation was completed with our involvement in this incident ending at 03:00 with our vehicles back at base.

Resources involved in this incident included two NWAS emergency ambulances, an ambulance rapid response vehicle, an ambulance area operational manager, and various GMP traffic and divisional police officers including their Collision Reconstruction Unit, all combined with our 24 members and two of our team Landrover ambulances, and the GMP Air Support Unit. (The Pennington Flash area Ranger also attended to open gates in an attempt to get closer access to the incident location).

For some of our new members recently taken on, this was the first time they had been involved in a body recovery operation, made worse by the tragic circumstances of this accident.

The condolences of the team are expressed to the family of the 27 year old man who died.