RESCUED FROM THE WILDERNESS
Ex-soldier’s week without power before a trek for help
‘He was completely exhausted’
A MAN of 64 was rescued from snow drifts after leaving his remote forest cottage to seek help following nearly a week without heat or electric light.
Former soldier Raymond Cibor was pulled from waist-deep powder after becoming exhausted during a fourhour battle to reach a nearby community.
He managed to drag himself more than a mile in freezing conditions before using his mobile phone to raise the alarm at around 5pm on Sunday.
Moffat Mountain Rescue Team members spent two hours battling the elements in the dark before finding the stranded former farm worker.
Mr Cibor, who lives alone four miles from the village of Eskdalemuir, Dumfriesshire, was checked by paramedics before being taken in a police 4x4 vehicle to Lockerbie, where he spent the night in a hotel.
Mr Cibor, who served in the Coldstream Guards, told rescuers he had taken to sitting in his car and running the engine outside his snowed-in home after his generator failed on Wednesday.
Originally from Doncaster, in Yorkshire, he had lived in the forest for at least two years before the incident.
He is a regularly visitor to a café based in the Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery, set up on the banks of the River Esk in 1967 because of its isolated location.
His cottage – around a mile-anda-half from the monastery – is in the centre of the Eskdalemuir forest and was still covered in around a foot of snow yesterday.
The nearby village of Eskdalemuir has a population of just 265 people.
Colin Mitchell, Moffat Mountain Rescue Team secretary, said the snow was so deep in the forest that rescuers had to abandon their off-road vehicles and search for Mr Cibor on foot.
He said: ‘It’s amazing how deep the snow was. He had come a long way and was completely exhausted when he dialled 999.
‘There was no way of getting our vehicles in there so we had to walk. When we found him he was surprisingly chirpy and talkative. We gave him some coffee and some biscuits and he was able to walk out with us.’
Mr Mitchell said the rescue team returned home at around 10.30pm before being scrambled again shortly after midnight to take part in another operation to rescue two male walkers on the Southern Upland Way. The 15 members of the Moffat team and eight from Tweed Valley battled atrocious conditions with low cloud, avalanche risk and snow drifts so large some rescuers used skis to make progress.
The men were found uninjured at around 5.30am yesterday.
A Coastguard helicopter was also involved in the operation, as well as search and rescue dogs. On Tuesday night last week, members of the Moffat team were also dispatched to help more than 200 drivers stuck on the M74, by handing out blankets and food.
Leader Shaun Duignan said: ‘This has been a busy week for the team.’
Mr Cibor did not wish to comment last night.