Hillwalker saved after nine-hour rescue drama
A LOST walker with severely frozen feet was rescued in a nine-hour operation after he was stranded in blizzard conditions 3,000 feet up a mountain.
Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team found the man in a hypothermic condition early yesterday, trying to cut the laces off his boots because they were so frozen.
A Coastguard search and rescue helicopter from Inverness was unable to carry the man to safety because of the conditions.
Instead, four members of Cairngorm MRT set off at around 6.30pm on Saturday after being called to 3,451ft Carn Ban Mor, in the Glen Feshie area.
Willie Anderson, team leader of Cairngorm MRT, said: “The walker, who was a foreign national, was stranded. He had succumbed to bad weather and the challenges of navigation in a blizzard.
“He had been on the hill for about eight hours. He was lost and getting hypothermic.
“The Coastguard rescue helicopter made strenuous attempts to get to him, then to drop the team off as high as possible, but in the end was thwarted by clag and snow.
“We were getting quite concerned for the walker. He had cut the laces off his boots because both his boots and his feet were frozen. That is common behaviour in people who are hypothermic. It sounded like he was in a bad way and it was proving really difficult to get to him.”
Members of Cairngorm MRT climbed to the summit of the hill to locate and rescue the walker.
Mr Anderson said: “The helicopter crew kept trying to reach the stranded walker through the night, but the weather was simply too bad. The guy had simply got lost and got caught out by the weather and exhaustion. It all went wrong for him and it was a good job we got to him when we did.
“He had a bivvy bag with him to survive the conditions, but they were challenging, to say the least.”
The team arrived back before 4am and the walker was warmed up at the base, with no further medical treatment needed.
The rescue took place only days after two skiers missing overnight in the Cairngorms survived sub-zero temperatures by huddling together in a snow hole.
The men, in their late 40s, braved temperatures of at least -10°C near the summit of the UK’S second highest mountain.
The cross country skiers, from the Inverness area, were found on Wednesday at about 4000ft on Ben Macdui.
They had dug a small snow hole just below the 4295ft summit and huddled together for warmth before they were found around 8am.
Last month, two skiers were also airlifted to safety after being discovered in a “precarious position” on a Highland mountain ridge.
The pair had survived a night without shelter in sub-zero temperatures after becoming stuck at 3,000 feet on Bidean nam Bian.
HM Coastguard has urged people not to put themselves in any “unnecessary danger” if they venture into the mountains.
A spokesman said: “Remember to be prepared. UK mountains should not be underestimated because they can be unforgiving for even the most experienced people.”
He had cut the laces off his boots because both his boots and his feet were frozen