An amateur photographer had to be rescued by specialist ambulance crews yesterday morning after falling and breaking his leg on a remote hillside.
The man, thought to be in his 50s, was lying out in the snow for four hours while crews worked to get him to safety and was in danger of hypothermia.
He had been out capturing images of the snowy landscape on Robinswood Hill in Matson,.
Great Western Ambulance Service (GWAS) received a 999 call shortly before 10.30am reporting his injury.
A paramedic in a rapid response vehicle reached the patient after parking his vehicle on the outskirts of the village and scrambling up the steep, icy hillside to him.
He requested specialist back-up after confirming the man has suffered a double break to his lower right leg.
Units from the GWAS Hazardous Area Response Team (HART) were also dispatched from their base in Filton, near Bristol – including the team's six-wheel all-terrain vehicle knows as Polaris.
HART Team Leader Gareth Knights said: "The patient's location was almost as remote as it could have been – over a mile from any sort of road and towards the top of a steep hill only reached through fields, locked gates and dense woodland.
"The three issues we had to tackle were locating him, treating him and then extracting him. As well as the injury to the leg, the protracted rescue clearly left him in danger of deteriorating rapidly through hypothermia."
Specialist thermal warming blankets were used to stop the man getting any colder and he was then taken by the Polaris vehicle to a waiting ambulance.
It left the scene at 2.30pm and had him at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital 30 minutes later.
