Last updated at 11:53, Monday, 27 October 2008

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A MOUNTAIN rescuer has criticised organisers of a Lake District marathon for allowing the event to go ahead.
Around 1,700 fell-runners competing in the Original Mountain Marathon were left stranded on Saturday after one month’s rain fell in just 24 hours.
Torrential downpours and 100mph winds left hundreds of fell-runners stranded in mines, farms and emergency centres in and around Cockermouth on Saturday night.
Keswick Mountain Rescue team leader Mark Hodgson was among the major rescue operation, which also invoilved a number of mountain rescue teams, police and an RAF helicopter.
Mr Hodgson got the call to help 11 runners down from a fell at noon on Saturday.
Teaming with crews from Cockermouth and Penrith, they dealt with injuries ranging from fractured ankles to hypothermia. He believes the race should never have gone ahead.
He said: “My view is that it should have been cancelled Saturday morning. It’s easy to say in hindsight and difficult to cancel when you have I don’t know how many of thousands waiting at Seathwaite wanting to go. But the conditions were extreme. I don’t think I have seen so much water coming off the fells, and that’s in over 30 odd years in the job.”

Runner Nathan Pike, of Green Bank, Ulverston, and his dad arrived safely back at base at 5pm Saturday after fellow competitors said the race was cancelled. He refused to criticise organisers for letting the race go-ahead.
Mr Pike said: “Everyone makes their own decisions and takes their own responsibility. Everyone had the right gear and everyone should have the ability and skills to make their own decisions. Maybe they should have talked to the locals. It’s not unusual for it to flood there. But if the event had not been cancelled I would still be running it now. We would have just cut our route short.”
Mike Vogler, 31, of the Gill, Ulverston, was competing in the elite class with his friend Adrian Chewter, 31, from Liverpool. He said winds on Honister Pass were so strong they knocked some people off their feet, but otherwise played down the conditions.
He said: “During the race I didn’t think the conditions were that bad. The day got wetter as we continued, but in such circumstances you just get on with it and complete the route. Anyone taking part knew what they were letting themselves in for and should have been equipped accordingly. It’s testament to the spirit of people taking part in the event that so few people were left on the hillside after day one.”

Police estimate about 18 people were treated for serious and minor injuries over the weekend. At 2.25pm yesterday an RAF helicopter search team located the final six missing people.
Cumbria police have stopped short of criticising event organisers for allowing the race, which set off from Keswick on Saturday, to go ahead despite severe weather warnings.
A police spokesman said they are speaking with organisers about what could have been done better.
Head organiser Jen Longbottom defended the decision.
She told the BBC: “We did reduce the courses and tried to avoid people going out on the high ridges. We tried to avoid the major river crossings. Some of the courses were reduced in the time people were out on them.
“We took a lot of safety measures to ensure things happened. We had radio marshals at fixed points and we were in radio contact throughout the event.”
Organisers cancelled the race at noon on Saturday when the weather completely deteriorated.
But most runners were in the hills and had no way of knowing because race rules disallow mobile phones.

Mr Pike said: “The event centre and organisers couldn’t coordinate properly because of the water. I saw Discovery (Land Rover) vehicles with water up to their headlights.
“Even when walking on the roads we had to adopt river-crossing drills.
We were up to our waists deep in water.”
Mike Weir, 42, who owns Honister Slate Mine, worked into Saturday night transporting parties down Honister Pass on buses and Land Rovers to emergency centres.
In a statement Mr Weir said: “On a good day the Lake District looks like heaven on earth, but on top of a mountain in extreme freak weather it turns into hell.
“They have to understand the terrain and micro-climate of the area.
This weekend has proved that it is like nowhere else. Even the most experienced people get caught out.
“I have never known weather conditions as severe as this.”
Amy Parry, a waitress at Cockermouth Sheep and Wool Centre, helped runners in the store café when it opened specially on Saturday night.
She said: “They were all a bit cold and wet. Anybody that was injured or ill went straight to hospital. I’ve definitely not seen anything like it before. There was a lot of shock and I wasn’t really sure what to expect. But they were all in good spirits and we gave them tea, coffee and blankets and helped get everybody warmed up.”
Yesterday, police were helping runners find their cars. Many of them were stranded under water.
It is the first time in the event has been abandoned in its 41-year history.

First published at 11:27, Monday, 27 October 2008
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk