Cautley Spout, England's highest waterfall above ground

A walker was rescued after slipping and breaking her leg near England’s highest waterfall.

The woman, in her 60s, was with her husband when she fell near the foot of Cautley Spout in Cumbria.

Kirkby Stephen Mountain Rescue Team was alerted after the incident on Saturday and went to the walker’s aid.

Twenty team members treated the woman at the site on the eastern edge of the Howgill fells and stretchered her to its Land Rover and then to a waiting ambulance at the Cross Keys Inn on the road north of Sedbergh.

It was the second time in less than a month the team had treated a walker with a broken leg. 13 team members helped a woman in her 50s after she slipped while walking with a party of eight friends on the Orton Fells in Cumbria on 21 December.

She was given pain relief and first aid before being stretchered to an ambulance.

Team leader Arthur Littlefair said: “In both these cases the casualty and their companions were well equipped and experienced walkers. It is the type of thing that could happen to any of us, particularly in the cold and wet weather we have been experiencing.”

The Kirkby Stephen team recently also helped other Lake District teams in extended searches for missing people. The team helped Patterdale MRT in a long search near Ullswater on 5 January, and joined Kendal MRT for a search around the village of Witherslack in south Cumbria on 26 December.