Published at 09:22, Sunday, 01 April 2012

Two climbers were airlifted to hospital following separate rescues in the Lake District.

Patterdale Mountain Rescue Team were called to help a 44-year-old male who had fallen roughly 150ft from the summit of Striding Edge on Helvellyn at about 1.30pm yesterday.

He was badly injured but managed to stop his fall on steep and broken ground.

An RAF rescue helicopter was training in the area and flew to the site before returning to the valley bottom to ferry team members and equipment on to the hill.

The steep ground meant the helicopter was unable to land and instead had to winch the team down to the site.

Patterdale members helped an RAF paramedic and treated the casualty at the scene, packaged him in a vacuum mattress and winched him from the site.

The man was flown from the scene by RAF helicopter to Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle while members of the public  who helped him man were escorted from the site.

Elsewhere earlier in the day, a 21-year-old Southampton man suffered a fall at about midday on Saturday while climbing at Woden’s Face, Borrowdale, and sustained non life-threatening chest and arm injuries.

He was treated at the scene by Great North Air Ambulance paramedics and a land crew, while Keswick Mountain Rescue Team helpedin carrying the patient to the Pride of Cumbria helicopter.

He was then airlifted to West Cumberland Hospital in Whitehaven, where his condition was described as being stable.

Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk