Shaftoe Crags

Incident Type: Rescue

For the second time within a week, the Team had members at the Pegswood base when a SARCALL activation was received by ourselves and North of Tyne Mountain Rescue Team.

On Wednesday evening, a group of University students were bouldering at Shaftoe Crags. One of the climbers fell to the ground and despite having spotters, landed awkwardly suffering a serious slower leg injury.

With team members training at Pegswood, two response vehicles and 10 members deployed very swiftly. Curlew Echo with two members was also mobilised from Rothbury. All three response vehicles, travelling on blue lights, arrived at the same time at Shaftoe Grange. The casualty’s location, below a small crag, was approximately 300 metres away along a rough track and over some rough ground.

On arrival at the incident site, two paramedics from North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust were on scene. Two of our medical personnel worked alongside the paramedics to stabilise the casualty, administering additional pain relief and splint the injury before the casualty was packaged on the Bell stretcher with the wheel for the extrication.

The casualty was then carried 300m back to Shaftoe Grange, where they were handed back over to the NEAS Paramedics for transfer to hospital. We hope that he’s out climbing again soon!

The incident involved 15 Team members for 3 hours 5 minutes.