Sunday 15th June 2025 at 17.50hrs we received an urgent request from Lancashire Police to locate 2 walkers who had reported in that were lost and suffering from the cold after being in water.
A full team response was activated due to the lack of information given and 21 volunteers from Bowland Pennine Mountain Rescue Team attended.
Due to the lack of information given on their location, a wide area search was started and we requested air assistance from the Police helicopter, however this proved difficult due to the local weather conditions and no one was located by them.
With various small mountain rescue search parties out, after a significant time period one of our search parties located the 2 lost walkers.
It was clear that both were suffering from Hypothermia and needed treatment and urgent evacuation.
Once assessed, the female was escorted and successfully walked off the mountain by our mountain rescuers, however the male required urgent evacuation so a Coast Guard Search & Rescue helicopter was dispatched from Caernarfon.
Unfortunately once the Coast Guard helicopter had arrived, due to the poor weather and visibility with very low cloud it was unable to land or give assistance, so it returned back to its base. This meant we had to carry out a lengthy stretcher carry off a distance of 2 ½ km where we could then transfer the male casualty over to the ambulance service.
This was an 8 hour search & rescue activity, testing the team and its members in many areas of mountain rescue disciplines but we wish both our casualties a speedy recover.
21 volunteers of Bowland Pennine Mountain Rescue Team were involved in this rescue.
