Rescuers battled for 12 hours during a blizzard to save a skier who had fallen 200 metres down a mountain in the Scottish Highlands.
Lochaber mountain rescue team was called out at 11.42am on Sunday after the man fell down a nearly sheer slope from the top of Aonach Beag near Ben Nevis, suffering numerous serious injuries.
The skier, a Scot in his 30s, ended up in a deep gully but conditions on the mountain were so poor rescuers were unable to call a helicopter to help them reach the casualty.
With 22 volunteer team members eventually called out, they had to instead descend by ropes from the 1,234-metre (4,048ft) peak in what John Stevenson, the team leader, described as a “total whiteout”.
Four rescuers attempted to climb up more than 1,000 metres from the foot of the mountain to reach the skier but had to abandon their attempt 200m below him, after hitting deeply unstable snow.
Stevenson said the rescuers used ropes to haul him back up the mountain on a specialised stretcher, after darkness and in extremely poor visibility. He was then taken off the hill using a specialist snow vehicle called a “piste basher” from the nearby Nevis Range ski resort. The resort’s ski patrol were also involved in the operation.
The casualty was then airlifted by a coastguard helicopter and arrived at Belford hospital in Fort William at 11.19pm, nearly 12 hours after the alarm was raised, before being transferred by air for specialist treatment in Edinburgh.
Stevenson said the skier had been trying to navigate his way across Aonach Beag when he fell. He could have fallen another 350 metres or so.
He said it was a technically complex and challenging rescue: “When you get someone halfway down a very steep slope in bad weather, and they have multiple injuries, it’s very difficult. You have to get the team members and medics down there to deal with the man’s injuries, get him packaged safely, and either get him pulled up or down to the bottom.”
