A teenager was air-lifted from Brean Down onboard a Coastguard helicopter yesterday (Wednesday, July 19th) following an accident.
The teenage boy suffered reported leg injuries during the incident while walking along Brean Down during a school visit.
Burnham-On-Sea Coastguards were called to the scene along with an ambulance crew to help the patient.
The Coastguard team created a safe landing area on top of Brean Down for the Coastguard helicopter to land just before 3pm. An eyewitness said the patient was carefully moved onto the helicopter before it took off and landed in a field next to Brean Cove where a land ambulance was waiting.
A Coastguard spokesman added: “While we initially assessed the young lad who was part of a school group visiting for the day. He told us that he had been playing and performed a knee slide along the ground and that a rock had jumped out on him.”
“The rock turned out to be an old piece of angle iron that was raised out the ground by a couple of inches and had caused an extensive injury that was discovered once we cut the clothing away.”
“The brave teenager was calm and chatty the whole time, and his teachers did a great job of caring for him until we arrived so credit to all involved. With no nearby pathways to the roadside it was clear that extraction was going to be difficult. A long stretcher carry would be detrimental to the injury so we requested the Coastguard helicopter Rescue 187.”
“A Helicopter Landing Site was set up so there was a clear and safe landing area for the helicopter and after the onboard paramedic had assessed and treated the young lad, the team stretcher carried him to the helicopter for a short flight to the field at the base of Brean Down where we then transferred him to a land ambulance for the onward journey to hospital. We wish him a speedy recovery after a very unlucky accident.”
The unfortunate incident happened during an outing by pupils from a school from the Midlands. Brean’s beachwarden was also nearby to provide safety cover.
Burnham Coastguards were also earlier called to three persons in mud near The Grand Pier in Weston-super-Mare on the same day. “The beach ranger on scene had a visual on the people and thankfully as we were making our way through the traffic, the news came through that they had managed to make their way back to the hard standing.”
