We had just finished our very wet rope rescue training on Mount Famine and had returned to base to debrief, warm up and start drying & sorting equipment. However, within a few minutes, we received two calls to assist two different couples in difficulty on Kinder Scout. The weather was very poor, with rain, wind and very low visibility, making the situation frightening for both casualty parties.

The first call was for a couple who had set off from Hayfield to walk to Kinder Reservoir and then up to the Edge Path via Red Brook. They ran into difficulty at the scramble out of Red Brook to the Edge Path and called for help.

Very soon after the first call, we received a second call to assist two sisters who were at Kinder Downfall when one of them twisted her ankle. Her ankle was very painful, but bravely she was able to hobble on with the help of her sister. They called for help because they weren’t sure that they would make it all the way back to Jacob’s Ladder and then Edale.

This had the potential to be an extremely difficult operation if both a stretcher evacuation (for the ankle injury) and a rope rescue (out of Red Brook) were needed. As always, our first response party, Kinder 1, set off to locate both casualty parties and evaluate them, providing any initial treatment needed and liaising with our incident manager at control to direct additional rescue parties and resources as required.

The lady with the ankle injury had done a heroic job of hobbling from Kinder Downfall past Red Brook and on towards Kinder Low. Kinder 1 met them and carried out an initial assessment. They were able to quickly hand them on to Kinder 2, who then provided pain relief. K2 helped the casualty walk down to Edale Cross, where she was put into a team vehicle and driven down to our base in Hayfield. After some tea and biscuits, we discharged the sisters with advice to go to A&E near home to get the ankle properly checked out.

Meanwhile, Kinder 1 continued to Red Brook, carrying some basic rope rescue kit. They located the casualty party, who were uninjured but very cold and scared. Fortunately, we were able to guide them carefully out of their predicament without needing a full rope rescue. We warmed them up and with Kinder 3 and Kinder 4, walked them down via Cluther Rocks to our vehicles at Broad Clough. We drove them back to base for tea and biscuits.

Both casualty parties did the right thing by calling us out early, so that we were able to complete the rescues before it got properly dark. We were also very fortunate that both rescues turned into ‘best case’ scenarios – no stretcher evacuation and no full rope rescue required. Even so, this was a challenging afternoon for our 29 team members who had spent over 9 hours on the hill after starting training at 08:30.

Kinder Mountain Rescue Team is staffed by volunteers who give their time free of charge and is funded entirely by public donations.

https://www.justgiving.com/kmrt

– Time: 13:45

– Type: Mountain Incidents

– Location: Red Brook and Kinder Scout

– Team members: 29

– Duration: 4 Hours

– Volunteer hours on this incident: 116 hours

– Total callout hours in 2025: 3960.9 hours