Cornwall Air Ambulance responds to multi-agency mine shaft incident

Cornwall Air Ambulance was tasked to the St Blazey area on Thursday evening (6^th July) to help a person who was injured in a mine shaft.

Critical Care Paramedics Lisa Ball and Thomas Hennessy Jones attended on board your helicopter as part of a multi-agency response just before 6pm.

On scene the crew worked alongside Devon & Cornwall Police, Cornwall Fire & Rescue Service, South Western Ambulance Service, and East Cornwall Search and Rescue Team.

The fire service set up a rope rescue system, and Lisa was lowered into the mine shaft to assess and treat the patient.

The patient was then brought to the surface and further treated before being airlifted by Cornwall Air Ambulance to Derriford Hospital.

Thomas Hennessy Jones, Critical Care Paramedic with Cornwall Air Ambulance, said: “This was a challenging incident to coordinate due to the location of the patient. The priority was to get them to safety as quickly as possible. Thanks to the specialist skills of all services involved we were able to extract the patient and treat them for their injuries on scene, before conveying them to the region’s major trauma centre for onward care. A great example of multi-agency teamwork.”