Incident Report #10 1975

Two 15 year old girls walking with adult supervision collapsed with severe exposure on the summit of Helvellyn. Both girls were carried down the mountain on stretchers by the combined forces of the Patterdale and Langdale/Ambleside teams. Both girls were taken to hospital at Kendal. Footnote: This incident was a complete disgrace. The weather was freezing above 1800 feet, the mist was low and there was snow on higher parts of the mountain. These children had no equipment or proper clothing for such a 'walk'. The adult teachers were quite wrong to take these children on the fells and subject them to such conditions, and the headmistress herself supported this criticism when informed of the incident. The local weather forecast for that day was very bad, and the party should never have started out. If the full time National Park wardens had not found these girls when they did, they could have suffered very seriously, and even died.