MOUNTAIN rescue volunteers have had a busy weekend dealing with three call-outs within 24 hours.

At 9am on Saturday morning, Cleveland Mountain Rescue Team began searched an area in Blackhall Rocks, responding to a request from Teesdale Mountain Rescue Team looking for missing Durham School deputy headteacher Mark Bushnell.

Fifteen members of the team spent nine hours searching heavily wooded valleys and open land in the Blackhall Rocks, Peterlee area but without success.

While this search was on-going they received a call from Yorkshire Ambulance Service to help with the rescue of a 55-year-old woman from the Guisborough area who had fallen out walking and badly injured her shoulder.

The third call came shortly after midnight on Sunday when North Yorkshire Police contacted them to ask for assistance in the search for a vulnerable 74-year-old male missing from the Hutton Rudby area. As the Team was on the way to meet with the police the missing person turned up safe and well and so the Team was stood down.

Gari Finch, a spokesman for the team, said: “Assisting another North-East Team is part of our commitment to the North-East Search and Rescue Association.

"In such cases, however, we always ensure that there are adequate resources remaining behind locally to respond to incidents in the Cleveland area.”