'The family lived several local authority areas away from where they became stuck': Mountain Rescue team plea after having to rescue family from trapped car

A mountain rescue team has released a plea for people not to travel during lockdown after they were called to rescue a family who’s car skidded off the road and became trapped in the verge,

The family were on a scenic drive in Tweet Valley when they skidded on an untreated road and their car became stuck in the verge.

The vehicle recovery service were unable to reach the site of the incident due to the ice and snow drifts, leading to the police and the mountain rescue team stepping in.

Seven team members of the mountain rescue were needed for the recovery.

Stock image: Tweet Valley Mountain Rescue

In a plea on their social media page, the Tweed Valley Mountain Rescue wrote: “These team members had to sit next to each other in close proximity for a prolonged period of time.

"If one of these members unknowingly has Covid then the likelihood is the other will have the disease now.

"Once at the incident site, our MRT members were in close contact with each other, the stranded family and police officers.

"Although social distancing was being practiced and PPE in place, the upshot is that we had 12 people mixing in reasonably close proximity who wouldn’t normally have had any contact with each other.

"Each of our team members is now back at home with their families; should one or more of our team members have contracted Covid on this incident they will now be spreading it to their nearest and dearest.

“At present, MRT Members do not fall in any of the priority categories for the vaccine.

"We’ll still turn out to help though – it’s what we do.”

The current lockdown measures include travel restrictions, and people are only allowed to leave their local authority area for essential reasons.

The Mountain Rescue team added: “The aim of this post isn’t to shame the parties involved – we’re not here to judge the rights and wrongs as to why someone finds themselves in a particular situation.

“The aim of this post is to highlight the substantial effort any mountain rescue incident involves and the knock-on effect any rescue can have on team members and their families.

"We can all help the current situation respecting the lockdown, exercising locally, avoiding risky activities and strictly observing social distancing practices.”

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