Person taken to hospital after fall from Anglesey cliff

Holyhead Coastguard Rescue Team were called to reports of a climber having fallen a “substantial distance” close to Gogarth in the north stack area of Holyhead mountain on Saturday evening (June 1).

They were assisted by Moelfre Coastguard Rescue Team, Cemaes Bay Coastguard Rescue Team, Rescue 936, RNLI Holyhead, and RNLI Trearddur Bay.

Crews made their way over to South Stack for better access, and the teams proceeded to carry a substantial amount of kit over the mountain to a location above the casualty.

Rescue teams during the operation. (Image: Moelfre Coastguard)

Lifeboats from both Holyhead and Trearddur Bay were tasked to assist in locating the casualty, who was reported to have landed on a ledge some distance above the water.

Lifeboat crew members were able to locate the injured climber and made their way ashore and managed to get to the casualty to administer pain relief whilst the cliff team were rigging to send two cliff technicians and stretcher over the edge to recover them.

Rescue 936 was also tasked but owing to the difficulties in winching from the climber’s location, were unable to help extract the casualty safely.

Owing to issues traversing across to the casualty, who was some 200m below, the “difficult decision” was made to recover both technicians and reposition the whole rig to a better location.

Whilst additional 300m ropes were brought from the trucks to the new location, a third cliff technician prepared themselves to lower down with the stretcher for recovery.

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By 12.30am, the cliff technician was being carefully lowered with the stretcher over the cliff in near total darkness, with a searchlight provided by Holyhead RNLI.

Once the technician had made their way down to the casualty’s position, they were able to get the casualty loaded into the stretcher and subsequently transferred onto the lifeboat prior to being winched up to the 936 team for transfer to hospital.

The technician was given a lift back to Holyhead on the lifeboat, and the cliff teams began the lengthy job of derigging all the equipment and carrying it all back to the trucks parked on the other side of the mountain.

With all kit, crew and rubbish removed from site, teams were able to be stood down from the scene at around 3am.

A Moelfre Coastguard spokesperson said: “We would like to offer our thanks to all those people involved in last night’s rescue, as ever the control room at Holyhead watching over us all and coordinating multiple pieces of the puzzle as well as other jobs that were ongoing during the protracted rescue.

“We wish the casualty a speedy recovery.

“A huge team effort from everyone involved.”