Peel Crag, Hadrian’s Wall

Incident Type: Rescue

On Thursday, ourselves and North of Tyne Mountain Rescue Team were called out by the North East Ambulance Service to assist with a medical emergency near Sycamore Gap.

Unfortunately, very little location information was available and it was not possible to re-establish contact with the casualty. It was initially believed that the casualty had been ‘climbing’ in the area.

As the Community Paramedic made their way to the area, both Mountain Rescue teams were quickly mobilised. Our Duty Controller worked closely with the NEAS Special Operations Desk to gather further information and provide advice to help narrow down exactly where the casualty could be.

A PhoneFind location request was sent to the casualty’s mobile phone. Initially this was unsuccessful as the phone’s location settings prevented a fix, however a location was later established, placing the casualty close to Peel Crag.

Our first team member on scene met up with the Community Paramedic and together they quickly located the casualty on Hadrian’s Wall above Peel Crag. The casualty turned out to be a ‘walker’ not a climber as first thought.

Additional mountain rescue volunteers were deployed to support the medical team, while our response vehicles approached from the south side of the Wall, allowing them to get within approximately 100 metres of the casualty.

After being carefully packaged into a mountain rescue stretcher, the casualty was carried the short distance to one of our response vehicles before being transported down to the roadside and handed over to the double-crewed ambulance for onward care.

We wish the casualty a full and speedy recovery.

The incident involved 19 Team members for 4 hours 1 minute.