News
Mountain rescuer suffers ‘life-changing’ injuries after 500ft fall on mission to save camper
‘The rescue team did not need to be out that night’
Two campers have been fined for breaching lockdown rules after a mountain rescue volunteer was seriously injured while going to their aid.
The volunteer, a man in his 60s, fells 500ft while responding to reports that one of the campers was suffering chest pains in the early hours of Saturday in the Lake District.
Patterdale Mountain Rescue said the man suffered ‘significant injuries’ and remains in a serious condition in hospital.
Each camper has been fined £200 by Cumbria Police.
The volunteer has sustained serious spinal injuries and facial fractures and is facing a long recovery with ‘life-changing injuries’.
During the rescue, near the top of the Red Screes, visibility was poor amid snow flurries and it was very, very cold due to significant wind chill brought by strong winds.
Rescuers say the volunteer fell causing the team to turn their attention to a more serious casualty, their friend and colleague.
Mike Blakey, Ops Lead for Lake District Search and Mountain Rescue Teams and Patterdale Team member, said: “We don’t actually know how he fell. He’s an experienced team member. He believes he slipped. The conditions were pretty atrocious, it was the start of this cold weather spell coming through.”
After a long and difficult rescue, the team have praised the HM Coastguard which flew in difficult conditions to get the man, who has now been described as a ‘hero’, to hospital.
Mike Blakeley added: “The support from the wider rescue community is absolutely amazing. It’s a tight family. Serious incidents involving Mountain Rescuers are few and far between so I think it stops everybody in their tracks.
“And we’re really thankful to the Rescue helicopter that flew through some really atrocious conditions and the other teams that came to our aid.”
The call-out has been described as ‘completely avoidable’ and there is growing anger, with Mountain Rescue Teams saying the men ‘shouldn’t have been in the Lake District’.
Mike continued: “The rescue team did not need to be out that night. A medical emergency like that at home would have been dealt with at home by an ambulance crew not a rescue team which then turned into 3 rescue teams and a helicopter crew so I’m absolutely clear that this was a completely avoidable rescue.
“There’s nothing in the regulations that say you can travel multiple miles and camp you know local people are not doing that so why they were there I do not understand and I genuinely hope that they are reflecting really hard on the consequences of their decisions.”
One of the campers was from Liverpool, with the other from Leicester. The two shared a car to drive to the Lake District to walk and camp, breaking the lockdown rules. They have both been fined £200.