Overview
- On 30 January, a walker fell about 100 metres down a snow-filled gully on Helvellyn’s Brown Cove Crags and sustained serious injuries.
- Keswick MRT led the Helvellyn operation with support from Patterdale MRT, packaging the casualty, lowering by rope, sledging downhill, then completing a helicopter winch once below cloud.
- Rescue 936 transferred the Helvellyn patient to a Great North Air Ambulance Service team for ongoing care before a flight to hospital in Preston.
- The Helvellyn callout involved 21 Keswick volunteers and five from Patterdale and lasted roughly five hours, marking new KMRT leader Tom Blakely’s first incident in post.
- A day earlier on Great Gable, Wasdale MRT managed a five-and-a-half-hour rescue in which low cloud prevented an immediate winch, prompting an uphill stretcher carry to Beck Head for a handover to Rescue 936 and onward flight to a specialist hospital.