A GRANDMOTHER is in intensive care with a fractured skull after falling 20 feet from a footpath in a Dales beauty spot.

It took the fell rescue team more than two hours to recover 57-year-old Elsie Moorhouse after she fell from the gravel public footpath on to a ledge at Strid Wood on the Bolton Abbey Estate.

The accident happened at about 2pm on Friday when Elsie, of Great Todber Farm, Gisburn, who has been the Herald's Rimington correspondent for more than 20 years, had gone for a walk with her husband Herbert.

The couple, who have three children and three grandchildren, are members of the Salem Congregational Church at Martin Top, Rimington and were showing off the Dales countryside to two young lady missionaries from the Northern Evangelical Trust who had been lodging at the family home while carrying out church work.

Herbert said: "We were just walking down to have a look at the Strid and I was at the front of the party, the two girls were behind walking side by side and Elsie was behind them when I heard a shout and when I looked behind Elsie was not there."

He added: "She had fallen down a rocky banking and rolled on to a ledge about 20 to 30 feet down and was unconscious.

"The ledge was part of an old overgrown footpath and Elsie was lying right on the far side of the ledge and there was another big drop below that."

The two girls raised the alarm straight away while Herbert and a passer-by watched over his wife.

After being recovered by the fell rescue team she was then rushed to Airedale Hospital with a fractured skull and broken ribs, before being moved to the neuro-intensive care unit at Leeds General Infirmary.

Herbert added that he believed there should have been better warning signs on the footpath or even a barrier to prevent accidents like this happening.

He said: "Elsie could have slipped over one of the big stones lying in the path but I think what is more likely to have happened is that the grass edge which runs along the path had given her a false sense of security.

"There was one place where the verge had broken away and I think the side could have given way when Elsie walked on it."

John Sheard, the estate manager at Bolton Abbey said there were warning signs at the entrance to Strid Wood and messages on the the car parking tickets.

He added that it was impossible for the estate to fence off all the footpaths and it was really up to individual walkers to take their own precautions.

Mrs Moorhouse's condition was reported as stable but poorly but she was showing signs of improvement as the Herald went to press.

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