Wark

A farm worker sustained a lower leg injury in a water logged field with no vehicle access yesterday evening.

The North East Ambulance Service’s Community Paramedic requested Mountain Rescue’s support to evacuate the farm worker back to the nearest road. Three 4×4 response vehicles with vital rescue equipment on board were deployed and members were called out from work and home to respond direct to incident near to Wark in the North Tyne valley.

By 18.10hrs local volunteer members were on scene working alongside the NEAS Paramedics to confirm equipment requirements to stabilise the injury and assist with the evacuation. Soon after the arrival of the first response vehicle, a winter weight casualty bag and other equipment were deployed to the scene a few hundred metres away from the farmhouse.

Once the casualty was stabilised and packaged on a Bell stretcher, the injured farmer worker was evacuated from the fields and handed over to the Ambulance crew at shortly after 19.00hrs for onward transport to hospital.

Then after a hot debrief everyone headed home or back to base to wash and dry the equipment!

A great example of how two emergency services – one statutory, one voluntary – work together to relieve suffering.

The incident involved 30 Team members for 3 hours 26 minutes.