Criticism for same family rescued twice in 48 hours from Lake District fells

Mountain rescue teams  have criticised  fell walkers after being called to help the same family twice on successive nights. Members of three rescue teams were call on Friday when a man aged 73 and his daughter in her 50s failed to turn up at accommodation near Keswick Rescuers were called the next night to search for the same man, who had been joined by a second daughter.

The group lacked basic equipment like maps and volunteers spent the equivalent of 150 man-hours searching for the group, who were not from the area. One rescuer suffered a broken leg during Friday's search operation.

Mike Park, who leads the Cockermouth Mountain Rescue Team,  (pictured)  said: "After dealing with these people on Friday we thought they would have learned their lesson and perhaps not continue with their planned walk, especially as the elderly man had sustained an ankle injury.

"But unfortunately we got a call at 10.30pm on Saturday to say they had not turned up at their next accommodation in Grasmere. We eventually found them at 2am on Sunday off their planned route, but otherwise uninjured.

A spokesman for Langdale and Ambleside Mountain Rescue Team, which was also involved in both operations, added: "It was expressed in the strongest possible terms that we didn't feel that this party should make any attempts to continue their route, being neither equipped, fit enough, nor capable of making the sensible decisions required.

"It is rare for team members to become angry or frustrated with our casualties, but this was one of those occasions.

"They set off with an obvious injury that was not going to repair itself. They were using a guidebook to navigate rather than maps and had only one torch in a party of three, which was one more than the previous day."