Penrith Mountain rescue volunteers have had a busy week after been called out on Tuesday (5th November) at 8pm to help a solo walker who had become exhausted and unable to continue on his walk in the North Pennines.
The walker was able to give a rough description of the route he’d taken following the Pennine Way but the team were unable to get an accurate location.
Phone signal triangulation gave a rough location along with nearly a 10km² potential search area. Team members headed into the North Pennines and searched the fellside and fell tops, using the route description provided by the casualty to try and reduce the size of the area to be searched.
Although this was hampered by thick cloud which reduced visibility to less than 5m at times. Teams from Kirkby Stephen Mountain Rescue Team and Lake District Mountain Rescue Search Dogs Association joined the search through the night but by 5am teams had been withdrawn from the hill and more support from across the region had been requested to assist in the search.
At dawn on Wednesday (6th November) searching efforts restarted, assisted by more search dogs, drones, and a Coastguard Helicopter, although persistent low cloud restricted the ability of searchers still.
Fortunately for the walker it had been an unseasonably mild and still night, so he had been able to stay warm and was able to continue walking once it was light. After several hours of walking, he came across a vehicle track and having updated the team was picked up shortly afterwards by members of a search party.
The walker was checked over by a paramedic from Langdale Ambleside Mountain Rescue Team and was taken to a local B&B to recover.
Alongside the 22 Penrith team members were involved in the search, 25 people from eleven other agencies were also involved in the search along with 5 search dogs including Kirkby Stephen Mountain Rescue Team, Langdale Ambleside Mountain Rescue Team (LAMRT), Coniston Mountain Rescue Team, Keswick Mountain Rescue Team, Cockermouth Mountain Rescue Team, LDMRSDA (Dogs), Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team, Kendal Mountain Search & Rescue Team, Duddon and Furness Mountain Rescue Team, SARDA (Dogs), HM Coastguard.
You can support the work of the volunteers at Penrith Mountain Rescue by making a donation to support the Team in its work at https://penrithmrt.org.uk/
photos by Penrith Mountain Rescue.
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