Firefighter saves climber's life

A FIREFIGHTER from Acle helped save the life of a man on the summit of one of Britain's highest mountains.Chris Gould was part of a team of climbers who discovered the man on Mount Snowden early last Friday morning.

A FIREFIGHTER from Acle helped save the life of a man on the summit of one of Britain's highest mountains.

Chris Gould was part of a team of climbers who discovered the man on Mount Snowden early last Friday morning.

The casualty was lying almost unconscious near the café at the top of the mountain covered in snow and suffering from severe hypothermia. A middle aged man, he was wearing just light clothing, including a combat jacket and trainers.

Chris, who works for the Ministry of Defence Fire Service at RAF Mildenhall, said: “The conditions were very bad and we had dropped off our normal path and came across the man in the doorway of the café.

“He was barely conscious and had low slurred speech we put him in our survival shelter where we got him stabilised.

“We called the rescue service and then a while later the mountain train arrived - we thought it had come to rescue the casualty but no-one knew anything about him. Fortunately the train took him back down the mountain, where he was picked up by helicopter.”

A trained lifesaver, Chris, 35, was taking part in the three peak challenge with colleagues Alan Coldwell, Jeremy Myles and David Wainwright.

Snowden was the last mountain they were tackling having climbed Ben Nevis and Scafell Pike in the space of 24 hours.

Chris was taking part in the challenge to raise funds for John Grant Special School in Caister where his son Morgan is a pupil.