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When photographer  Brenda Acton was rescued by air ambulance after falling in the Yorkshire hills she knew just what to do – catch the whole ordeal on camera.

Retired teacher Mrs Acton, 62, was on a school trip with pupils from Lacey Green Academy, when she had a serious fall, breaking her leg.

But forever thinking of the perfect shot, the amateur snapper, a member of Lindow Photographic Group, handed her camera to her rescuers so they could record her whole nightmare.

She said: “I got up at about 6.30am before everyone else to try and get some good sunrise shots over the Todmorden moors.

“I walked quite a way and ­hadn’t told anyone where I was going. I thought I’d be back before anyone was up. I got some great pictures but then on the way back, and about 20 minutes from the site, I fell.

“I knew straight away I’d broken my leg. And to be honest, my life changed at that point. I panicked. I thought what if nobody finds me – nobody knows I’m gone. It was terrifying and painful.”

Her leg was actually broken in three places.

“I was in a gully and knew that anyone passing wouldn’t see me. Luckily I had my mobile phone.”

She phoned the headteacher and her husband at home before finally getting through to a member of staff.

A fell runner was sent up to find her and mountain rescue stretchered her back to base before an air ambulance picked her up from a farmer’s field.

But through the whole event, she instructed her rescuers and staff to take pictures.

She said: “It’s good to be able to look back at it.

“The rescue teams were keen for pictures too so they could use it as an example of what not to do in the hills.”

Mrs Acton, of Lindow Fold Drive,  was stretchered off the hill by mountain rescue before being flown to Blackburn hospital where she was put in a cast up to her hips. She was then transferred to
Macclesfield Hospital where she underwent surgery to put metal plates in her leg.

The grandmother of three, married to Colin, and a teacher at the school for 29 years, is now on her way to recovery and back on her bike.