Incident
24 in 2002
Type
Location
Shamrock, Scafell
Other Agencies
Diagnosis

Call from the police to rescue a walker with a broken leg below Lord’s Rake on Scafell. It turned out that he had more serious injuries. He and his father were descending from Scafell via Lords rake when they took a wrong turn in the mist and started to descend Shamrock (a very slippery, steep crag). They both fell but the son received a fractured femur (upper leg). An RAF Sea King helicopter was called up from Boulmer to help ferry the back up members to the cloud base level (top of Brown Tongue). The advance group and several back up members walked all the way. It was a difficult evacuation on very steep ground using a series of near vertical stretcher lowers with barrow-boy. All 200 metres of rope were used. The casualty and his father were airlifted to West Cumberland Hospital. A heavy job with limited team members (around 16) was successfully completed and the base closed before midnight.

Incident started at 17:56 and ended at 23:59 making 6.1 hrs in total. There were 16 Wasdale team members involved. Total rescuer hours: 98

Categories: