A FAMILY whose car got stranded in the snow trying to get to hospital with their ill child were saved by volunteers from the Woodhead Mountain Rescue Team.
On Tuesday evening the team received a request from the Yorkshire Ambulance Service to find and help a young family stuck at High Hoyland who were trying to reach the hospital with their infant child who was having breathing difficulties. The ambulance was unable to reach the family’s car which had become stranded in the snow.
Fortunately, the team managed to find the family and take them to a clear road using the team’s Land Rover where a waiting ambulance was able to take them on to the hospital.
The father of the child sent a thank you to the team which was posted on its Facebook page yesterday.
It said: “You turned up and sorted the whole situation out and one of the team got in with the ambulance to guide the ambulance (carrying my son) to safety.
” I didn’t have a chance to say thank you and say that you chaps are heroes.
“Clearly it wasn’t a crisis but you turned up and saved the day but left without me being able to show my appreciation. I want to thank you all and make a donation but not sure how I can do this? Please let me know and I will gladly contribute to your cause, I’m sorry I can’t give more and it doesn’t do you guys credit but it’s my way of saying thanks.”
The team has had a busy few days as the so-called ‘beast from the east’ cold snap hit the borough causing widespread travel disruption.
Yesterday the volunteers were out helping stranded motorists and team member Paul Besley spoke to the Chronicle to say they were trying to make their way to the driver of a lorry who had no food or water after his vehicle got stuck at Dunford Bridge overnight.
The team’s rescue efforts come just days after they were victims of a hoax call, wasting valuable volunteers’ time.
Volunteers were called out by the police to search for a man who had contacted the emergency services via the emergency SMS system. The man had said he had collapsed and was seriously ill in an unknown location. He needed help quickly.
The police managed to get an approximate location of his phone but couldn’t raise him by text or call.
Due to the nature of the man’s text message a large scale search began involving a great number of police resources and with ambulance and paramedics on standby at the location. Woodhead Mountain Rescue was called in to search the inaccessible ground.
It involved 20 team members, who all came out from work and in many cases losing pay.
The team searched for many hours into darkness without success before being stood down by police after it was established the call was a hoax.
The callout tied up valuable resources that could have been needed elsewhere and cost the team and its members a good deal of time and money and caused significant disruption to employers.
Paul said despite this incident he wanted to make it clear the team will always respond to a call out no matter what the circumstances and he expects they will be busy into the weekend. He said: “If this weather keeps up, the test will come when the temperatures start to drop.”
