Two highly-trained mountain rescuers narrowly avoided death on the same steep South Lakeland mountainside in separate accidents within 24 hours, reports Andy Bloxham.

Kendal Mountain Rescue volunteer Pete Munford, 38, was hurled 70ft down Pike O'Stickle, in Great Langdale, after the helicopter he hung from hit the crag.

A day later, a 33-year-old Royal Air Force mountain rescuer plunged 100ft from the same rock the helicopter clipped after he slipped trying to collect evidence for an investigation into the crash.

Andy Dell, of Kendal Mountain Rescue Team, said: "What happened has been quite tragic but the outcome could have been far worse. Nobody wants to go through this again."

Mr Dell was part of a team airlifted by Royal Navy Sea King helicopter to Pike O'Stickle on Monday to help a 20-year-old Merseyside climber who had fallen and broken his upper arm.

As the rescuers arrived, the climber was in such a precarious position that one of his two companions had to hold his legs to stop him falling further down the crag.

Mr Dell and a helicopter crewman were winched on to the rock a few feet above the injured climber then Mr Munford, of Garth Row, Kendal, began descending on the helicopter cable.

He was about to detach himself when, Mr Dell said, things started to go seriously wrong.

"Pete had just made contact with the ledge that I was on about five feet below me when the helicopter blades struck the cliff above."

First one, then all five of the helicopter's main rotor blades slammed into the rock, sending shards of metal and chunks of rock whirling into the air.

"There was a lot of noise and debris flying about and the helicopter went into a controlled crash dive but Pete had only partially detached himself," said Mr Dell. "The helicopter was flying down into the valley and, at the end of a winch wire, Pete was dragged tumbling down the crag.

"He managed to get the strop off and fell at least 60ft and out of sight. The helicopter went tumbling away down the valley and I'm left on the ledge looking at the crewman waiting for a bang."

That bang, however, did not happen as the helicopter crew retained enough control to land the large Sea King upright on a flat piece of land further up the valley.

Up on the crag, Mr Dell immediately began to secure the injured climber, his two friends and the crewman to the rock face.

Quickly, he then abseiled down the crag to find his team-mate: "I found Pete, who had gone between 60 and 70ft and had landed in some boulders on a broken piece of crag. If he had gone much further he would have gone over a much larger drop."

Mr Munford, a freelance outdoor pursuits instructor, sustained serious back injuries and a broken wrist and was taken, by helicopter, to the Cumberland Infirmary at Carlisle, and was later transferred to Newcastle General Hospital where his condition yesterday (Thursday) was said to be stable.

A total of 37 members of Langdale and Ambleside, Kendal and Coniston mountain rescue teams had been involved over almost seven hours.

A navy search and rescue spokesman said it was "far too early" to say who or what was to blame for the accident. He said a board of inquiry had been set up which would look at everything from training and pilot hours, to the aircraft's service history and the mission itself, to get to the bottom of the crash.

Darren Summerson, leader of the RAF team sent to guard the site, said the aircraft only sustained visible damage to the blades: "To see the helicopter, you wouldn't think it had crashed."

Then, almost exactly 24 hours later, as the crash management' mountain rescue team from RAF Leeming collected evidence from the mountainside, fate struck again.

A 33-year-old rescuer, sent to pick up the pieces of rotor blade, slipped and, without a rope, tumbled 100ft and sustained a fractured skull and badly damaged his elbow.

Michael Mulford, national military search and rescue spokesman, said that, despite two accidents in two days, rescues were still relatively safe.

Two inquiries have now been launched: the naval board of inquiry and an RAF inquiry into the second fall. The damaged aircraft was itself airlifted out of the valley by a giant Chinook military helicopter on Wednesday.