Injured hillwalker crawls for hours before rescue

● Couple were attempting the ‘Fisherfield Five’

An injured hillwalker crawled for hours before being rescued from one of the remotest parts of the UK.

The woman was attempting the “Fisherfield Five” Munros near Dundonnell, in Wester Ross, with her partner when she slipped and was unable to walk further.

The mountains include the remotest Munros in Scotland and are a magnet for climbers in the An Teallach area, which falls within the massive region coveredbydundonnellmountain Rescue Team.

After a “lengthy crawl”, lasting a number of hours, Dundonnell Mountain Rescue Team said the pair had spent the night on the mountain.

The woman was airlifted on Saturday, about 20 hours after her slip.

The pair, who are in their late 20s, initially set out on Friday to tackle the five Munros in the Fisherfield Forest, an area south-west of Ullapool known as the “Great Wilderness”.

A spokesman for the rescue team said the woman had injured her ankle at about 3pm on Friday afternoon.

She crawled for several hours before they decided to “bed down” for the night, the spokesman said. Neither of them had a mobile phone signal so the woman’s uninjured partner set off on a five-hour walk in the early hours of Saturday morning to raise the alarm.

The Coastguard rescue helicopter from Stornoway airlifted the woman to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness for medical treatment at about 10am on Saturday.

Fifteen members of Dundonnell Mountain Rescue Team were also involved in the rescue.

The team also collected the couple’s camping gear from the Shenavall bothy. Team leader Donald Macrae said: “The couple did the right thing and were both well equipped. We were very grateful for the air assistance received as it would otherwise have resulted in over a 10-hour stretcher carry given the truly remote location.”

Last August climber James Edwards, 40, died after falling in the Fisherfield Mountains.

The father-of-two from Conon Bridge near Dingwall, was an experienced member of the Dundonnell Mountain Rescue Team and had been climbing for more than a decade – he was off duty when the accident happened.

The team braved a six-hour hike to reach him in “atrocious weather” – including heavy fog and rain but he later died in hospital.