Major rescue after walker suffers heart attack in Mournes

Major rescue after walker suffers heart attack in Mournes

25 February 2015

A HILL walker who suffered a heart attack in the Mournes sparked a major rescue operation last week.

The man, in his 50s, was ascending Slieve Binnian with his partner on Wednesday afternoon when he suffered severe chest pains. 

Twelve members of the Mourne Mountain Rescue Team was tasked to the area along with the RSNI helicopter. However, bad weather and the difficult terrain hampered the police air support unit so the specialist Irish Coastguard helicopter was summoned from Dublin.

The mountain rescue team walked to the casualty, among with an Ambulance Service paramedic and an on scene doctor who stabilised the man and prepared him for winching into the helicopter.

Because of the conditions the team had to carry the man downhill to a suitable winching point before he was airlifted from the mountains to Daisy Hill Hospital in Newry. The rescue operation took three hours.

The mountain rescue team was called out again on Saturday afternoon after a mountain biker fell on one of the new trails in Castlewellan Forest Park.

The Ambulance Service was unable to extricate the man from the forest because of the very difficult terrain so it was left to 15 members of the rescue team to bring the casualty to the waiting ambulance.