The Caernarfon Coastguard helicopter was able to winch the man from the mountain. Photo: Bob Smith/grough
A walker was airlifted to hospital after injuring himself in a fall on a Snowdonia mountain.
The man was part of a group of two couples and a friend making the ascent of Tryfan on Sunday when the incident happened.
Chris Lloyd of Ogwen Valley Mountain Rescue Organisation, which was called out to aid the walker, said the group made a prompt start on the scramble up the North Ridge.
“Unfortunately, early on in their day, one of the men slipped off a short climb, falling back a short distance but banging his head and breaking his upper arm,” he said.
The walkers called 999 about 9.30am and used the What3words system to note their position.
Mr Lloyd said: “As the W3W gave an urban location, the team leader used the recognised PhoneFind system.
“The informant was able to use the system and an accurate grid reference on the lower part of the North Ridge was provided. A team leader and a team doctor made haste to the incident site.”
The team also requested a helicopter to winch the injured walker from the mountain, but as it was deployed on another incident, Ogwen Valley team members gathered at their base to provide a stretcher party.
Mr Lloyd said: “Fortunately, the Coastguard helicopter became available and was able to winch the casualty onboard and fly him to hospital at Bangor. The remaining four in the party decided to walk down to the A5 road with the two Ogwen team members.
“The party, all local and familiar with Tryfan, were well equipped and experienced hillwalkers. An unfortunate incident.”
Colin H
23 November 2020Surely the thing to note from this incident is that, once again, W3W gave an incorrect location.
It does appear that W3W is not reliable enough.
Oliver Descoeudres
24 November 2020"W3W gave an incorrect location" - that's a bit concerning. Would be helpful to understand whether the W3W words miscommunicated, or if there's a fundemental flaw with the system. One of the weaknesses is that if someone mis-hears one of three words, the location may be thousands of miles away...
Christian McArdle
24 November 2020Oliver, that is a strength, not a weakness. It is designed specifically so that mishearing a word gives an absurd location. This provides feedback that the location was misheard and to try again. If if gave a nearby location (i.e. 1km away) such as is easily done mishearing or misreading a grid reference, much time can be wasted looking in the wrong, but plausible, location. Mountain rescue won't go searching a location 18km off the coast of Belize.
Geoff Hetherington
04 December 2020So if this was a misheard word, resulting in an implausible location, why didn’t the rescue service ask for the code to be repeated? Instead, a more traditional location finder was used. Is the system susceptible to user error or was this a system failure? Or, having involved a misheard word, did the W3W location system “fail” because the rescue service was unwilling to ask for a repeat to “try again” - so, actually, this cannot be put down to a W3W failure at all?