The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Brave rescue team helps climber hurt in rock fall
Local climber suffers arm injuries and left hanging upside down
Brave rescuers abseiled 800 feet in thick fog to reach a climber with “serious” arm injuries after a fall left him suspended upside down in the Cairngorms at the weekend.
Sixteen members of Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team (MRT) were called to Fingers Ridge in the Coire an t-Sneachda area around 10.30am on Saturday in an operation that lasted nearly seven hours.
A local climber – believed to be from the Tomatin area and in his 40s – fell more than 30 feet after he was hit by a rock fall.
The boulders smashed his arm and also dislodged the belay that secured the rope attached to his climbing partner, who was in his 20s and from Aberdeen.
“The lead climber got bad crush injuries to his arm after being hit by the rocks and then falling,” said Willie Anderson, leader of Cairngorm MRT
“He ended hanging upside down. But his partner did a really good job and set up a new belay to lower him down to a ledge about 900 feet high up on the mountain.
“The cloud level was too low for the helicopter to get in so we put two team members at the top of the route and they abseiled about 800 feet down in thick fog to reach them.
“The other guy was fine but the lead climber had serious arm injuries.”
Team doctor Dr Duncan Scott was lowered 800 feet down to the injured climber.
The climbers were lowered down to the coire floor and then walked off the mountain by the rescue team to a Coastguard search and rescue helicopter from Inverness.
The injured man was taken to Raigmore Hospital at Inverness. His condition is unknown.
In a separate incident, the team was also called to help three walkers lost on Bynack Mor.
They made their way off the mountain after some “coaching” from the rescue team.