THE Devon Air Ambulance was scrambled to Haytor this weekend as hundreds of people determined to enjoy a winter wonderland defied police road closures and headed to the moor — creating gridlock.

The B3387 connecting Bovey Tracey to Haytor was closed by the highways authority just before noon on Saturday.

It was followed by more road closures as authorities tried to create a virtual 'lockdown' of the moor in order to clear snow.

Hundreds of cars had driven around the closure signs and parked their vehicles as close as they could to Haytor.

It meant that when 79-year-old Archie Conner, from Exmouth, fell and fractured his hip, the air ambulance needed to be called in to get him to hospital as quickly as possible.

Mr Connor's daughter Alison Walker, 48, from Weymouth, praised the air ambulance team.

She said: "The air ambulance crew were a super. It was a very quick response and we were very lucky it was there.

"It would have been very difficult and much more uncomfortable if we had to get dad off Dartmoor by road.

"We couldn't be more grateful to the emergency services, and the air ambulance in particular."

The accident happened when Mr Conner was just about to leave the visitor centre at 2.30pm and slipped on ice.

Ms Walker said: "It was a little icy under foot, dad came out, slipped, and he went down on his side."

Meanwhile, many people, some armed with sledges and skis, simply left their vehicles by the side of the road and walked to Haytor.

It created major headache for the snow ploughs, gritters and heavy lorries that were trying to clear the routes.

Devon County Council, the highways authority, said visitors had made its work more difficult than it should have been.

Hugh Griffiths, operations manager, said: "The road needed to be closed because it had to be cleared of snow and ice.

"People were going up to play in the snow and ended up leaving their cars by the road.

"We couldn't tell if they were abandoned or just parked.

"It ended up hampering our efforts to clear the road."

A combination of ice and snow from previous falls and a blizzard at around 11am on Saturday led to a decision to close the road.

The B3212 from Princetown was also closed due to the snow and throughout the weekend.

Many drivers were left frustrated by the closure and simply took their sledges out of the cars and walked.

Mr Griffiths said: "We used ploughs and gritters to clear the road. In some areas the banks were too high for the lorries to tip their snow into fields so they had to travel some distance.

"It may have seemed to some people like not a lot was happening but we had to wait for people to come back to their cars.

"There has been heavy snow on Dartmoor and more of it fell on Saturday. So we had ice already on the road and then added snow on top."

Speaking after the incident on Saturday, Jim Toppy, information assistant at the Haytor Information Centre, said: "The road looked like chaos. There were cars parked all along one side of it and others stuck in the single lane unable to move.

"The road was closed at Bovey Tracey but these cars had ignored the signs and come up anyway.

"There's a road closed sign and people were just driving past it.

"We've had problems all day. It's always the same when we have snow. That's why the air ambulance was here.

"Lots of people were having fun on the moor but others were just stuck in their cars."

A Westcountry Ambulance Service spokesman confirmed a man had been airlifted to hospital after suffering from a suspected broken hip.

Yesterday, Mr Conner was undergoing a operation to pin a fractured hip at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, a 10-minute flight from the moor.

Last night, a weather warning was issued by forecasters who predicted a 60 per cent chance of heavy and drifting snow for South Devon.

The Met Office and Torbay Council's emergency control centre warned melting snow, combined with heavy rain, could lead to localised flooding today.

Forecasters said there was a chance of five to 10 centimetres of snow overnight, with as much as 20 centimetres predicted on higher ground such as Haytor.

For a video of the rescue from Haytor log onto www.thisissouthdevon.co.uk