A WOMAN was airlifted to hospital after a serious fall while out walking.

The woman, aged 22, suffered multiple serious injuries in the incident at Darwen Tower on Saturday afternoon.

Eighteen members of Bolton Mountain Rescue Team (BMRT) attended the incident shortly after 2pm and were the first emergency crew to arrive at the scene.

Chris Greenhalgh, deputy team leader, said: “We were called to reports of a woman who had fallen and sustained numerous injuries.

“We assessed the woman. She was in quite a lot of pain and was very cold. We realised it could worsen the injuries if we attempted to move her and called for a helicopter evacuation. We administered pain relief.

“We helped the two paramedics to transfer the woman to the helicopter and she was taken to hospital," he added.

BMRT remained in attendance for just under two hours. The team is run by volunteers and relies heavily on support from the public to finance their search and rescue service.