Incident 15. The team was called at 18.48 by the Police to assist the Ambulance service with an injured female stuck in mud above the East Dart River, north of Hartland Tor. A full team callout was sent, to RV at Postbridge car park. Hill parties were deployed on either side of the river to locate the casualty site and she was soon found on the West side of the river along the old disused leat, which was extremely muddy.
Additional members were deployed along with three HART team personnel to the casualty site with our Titan stretcher and kit required to extract the casualty. First aid and pain relief was initially administered by one of our Casualty Carers who handed over that role to paramedics on their arrival.
Given the very poor ground conditions it was decided the best extraction route was across the river.
As light was failing the HART team leader put in a call requesting a Coastguard helicopter to assist in the evacuation. The casualty had been stretchered down a steep slope and across the river just as the helicopter arrived overhead. She was then evacuated by the helicopter, with three members of our team and the HART team to assist in her transfer to a waiting SWAST ambulance at Postbridge.
This turned out to be a very challenging extraction but was carried out with our usual professionalism and good inter-agency working.
Team returned to our Rescue Centre at approximately 23.00. We wish the lady a speedy recovery.
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