A MOUNTAIN rescue team was called out three times in one day to assist injured walkers.

Patterdale Mountain Res-cue Team was out for seven-and-a-half hours in Helvellyn and Aira Force to help emergency services.

Three walkers were hurt in three separate incidents during last Thursday.

Deputy team leader Nigel Harling said: “They all suffered lower leg and ankle injuries and were all taken to hospital. The team, which started with six people and by the end of the day was 12, had had a long day in the heat but they were fine.”

The team was called out just after 9.30am to help a 30-year-old man who had fallen near Striding Edge, Helvellyn. Team members were flown by the North West Air Ambulance to the casualty, from Penrith, who had injured his ankle.

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They treated him before airlifting him from Red Tarn to the rescue centre. While he was being transferred to Cumberland Infirmary Carlisle by road ambulance, the team was called out at around midday to Aira Force where an ‘elderly’ woman had injured her ankle close to the waterfall.

Her ankle was splinted before she was stretchered to a waiting road ambulance.

The team was called back to Helvellyn at around 3pm after a girl, believed to be 16, slipped on the steep Red Tarn descent and injured her. ankle. It was splinted before she was stretchered to Glen-ridding Beck.

She was then taken in a Land Rover on a track leading to Greenside Mines where she was handed over to a waiting road ambulance to go to Cumberland Infirmary Mr Harling said: “The walkers were all wearing adequate footwear but we encourage people to wear appropriate shoes and to take care on the steep ground.

“Statistically a lot of our injuries we deal with are people descending at the end of the day or going back to the car and they have stumbles or twists.”

Meanwhile, the team was called out at 6.20pm on Sunday to assist a 17-year-old girl, from Mansfield, who had injured her ankle while descending The Knott, at Hayeswater Dam.