At 0900hours on Wednesday the 6th January 2010 the Team along with North of Tyne SRT, were requested by the North East Ambulance Service (NEAS ) to assist due to the ongoing bad weather which has affected the North East. The Team despatched 2 Land Rover Defender 4x4 ambulances with team medical staff to various locations throughout the north to assist frontline ambulance crews in the transfer of patients and staff, the recovery of stranded NEAS vehicles and to respond to calls alongside NEAS crews. This assistance continues.

So far the Team has provided regular cover to NEAS and will continue to do so until the weather conditions improve and NEAS stand the team down. Our volunteer crews have been working up to fourteen hour days and have remained on standby throughout the night. The Team has been asked to assist crews with urgent and non-urgent calls in areas including Berwick, Alnwick, North Shields, Dudley, Bedlington, Ashington, Morpeth and Hexham. One crew was requested to transfer a patient from Berwick to Borders General Hospital in Melrose. A total of 25 missions were carried out.
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Ploughing a boundary road of the National Park at Elilaw above Netherton at the crack of dawn this week. This picture gives you an idea of just how deep the snow is in the remote hills and valleys of the Cheviot Hills.

National Park Rangers urged visitors not to attempt to get into the hills while the cold weather remains as there is little access and no car parking or facilities.

Six team members transported food and medical supplies to a remote farmhouse in the Cheviots. The occupants included a young baby. They had been cut-off for several days, and supplies were running low. The members left their vehicles at Alwinton. They walked 6 miles to the farmhouse through deep snow, and then 6 miles back again. Click image to enlarge.

The Team leader was contacted at 0600 by the Northumbria Police, in connection with a 40 year old male who had walked out of an hotel in Otterburn at 0130, following a domestic dispute. He was reported as lost, and ill-equipped for the bad weather. As the team were starting to search, further investigation revealed that the missing person had absconded from prison in 1996, and he been wanted by the police ever since. Acting on information received, the police attended a house in Newcastle, where he was located and arrested. The Team was stood down at 0840.
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The Team was contacted at 0115 by the Northumbria Police about a female walker with a suspected broken ankle on Brough Law, in the Ingram Valley. She was one of a group of people doing a night walk. Conditions underfoot were difficult, and she had slipped on the icy ground. She was eventually lifted off by a Sea King from RAF Boulmer and taken to hospital by ambulance. The members of the group who had stayed with her were walked off the hill.

The team was contacted at 2215 by the Northumbria Police in connection with a patient who was missing from St George's Hospital, Morpeth. The Team searched the hospital grounds without success. The patient returned to the hospital the following morning, having spent the night at an undisclosed location.