Tragedy as man killed on A90

Festive celebration sended in tragedy for a north-east family following a fatal accident on a notorious stretch of road.

A pedestrian, named locally as Gary Grant, died when he was hit by a car on the Fraserburgh to Peterhead section of the A90 at Lonmay on New Year’s Day.

Mr Grant was understood to have been visiting his parents, who live close to the crash scene.

It is the latest in a series of accidents on the route.

More than half of patients arriving at a north-east accident and emergency department over New Year were drunk.

Staff at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary dealt with 69 people between midnight and 8am on January 1 – with about two-thirds of the cases alcohol-related.

On an average Saturday night, A&E doctors deal with about 35 patients.

Last night NHS Grampian said the propor- tion of drink- related complaints during the New Year festivities was only “slightly higher” than a typical weekend.

Patients attending the hospital included people who had simply had too much alcohol, others who had an accident while drunk, alcohol-related assault victims and casualties who had mixed drink and drugs.

AspokeswomanforNHS Grampian said: “The proportion of alcoholrelated cases was only slightly higher than would be seen on a busy weekend night.

“In line with previous years, the emergency department were expecting increased numbers

“The emergency department were expecting an increase”

associated with the New Year celebrations and had extra staff on duty.

“The team worked extremely hard, ensuring urgent cases continued to receive timely care and that all patients were appropriately managed.”

The Scottish Ambulance Service also had its busiest night of the year, dealing with 2,424 calls on Hogmanay, down 15% on last year’s total.

Pauline Howie, chief executive of the service, said: “Whilst there were fewer calls overall than last year, the number of incident responses was similar and activity at times was intense, with most of the workload occurring between midnight and 7am.”