Pensioner rescued by observant PCSO (From The Northern Echo)

Pensioner rescued by observant PCSO

3:51pm Wednesday 22nd February 2012 in Crook & Weardale News By Duncan Leatherdale

A PENSIONER lay trapped in a ditch for more than an hour before an eagle-eyed community support officer spotted him while out on patrol.

Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) Tracy Bilton was a passenger in a police car travelling from Durham Police headquarters in Aykley Heads, Durham City, back to her beat office in Stanhope, Weardale, when something next to the road caught her eye.

She and the driver were between Quebec and Tow Law at about 4pm, last Thursday, when she told the driver to stop and turn around.

She said: "I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I told the officer driving that I thought it was an arm and the officer said it couldn't be, but Imade them turn back, just in case."

The officers found the 86year-oldman trapped beneath apile of rubble, between a soil mound and a fence next to the side of the road.

PCSO Bilton said: "The only part of his body he could move was his arm. It took three of us to pull him free."

Theman told the officers he had been walking beside the road when, at about 2.45pm, he had stood to one side to allow two lorries to pass because he feared he could be knocked over by their draught.

But the walker slipped on the soil mound and became trapped.

PCSO Bilton, who has been in the job for seven years and has been working inWeardale since 2008, said: "It was pure chance I saw him. He said he had been lying like that for more than an hour, in which timemany cars had gone past, but no one must have seen him.

"I'm glad we got there when we did because if he had had to be there much longer the result may not have been nearly so positive."

Paramedics were called and took the man home.

Sergeant Chris Knox, from the local neighbourhood policing team, said: "This is exactly what the public have come to expect from our officers.

"Tracy has shown a duty of care and acted on her instinct to ensure the elderlyman was cared for in the appropriate way.

"She should be very proud of her actions."