AS the North and North-east of Scotland, Orkney, and Shetland were again suffering blizzard conditions yesterday, a major rescue ended successfully in Glencoe, writes David Ross, Highland Correspondent.
A climber was found alive, having survived a 400ft fall by clinging to an icy rock slab for 18 hours over a 300ft drop.
Mr Lawrence Reeve, a 40-year-old computer operator from Chessington in Surrey, lay in temperatures as low as minus 12C. He was airlifted to Belford Hospital, Fort William, where he was in a stable condition last night.
Mr Reeve had been climbing on Meall A' Bhuridh and had tried to cross a connecting ridge to Creise on Monday afternoon when he fell.
In a second incident, an injured climber was rescued from the north face of Ben Nevis after he slipped and fell. Neil Mathews, 28, from Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria had been tackling a climb known as Glover's Chimney on Tower Ridge. He was airlifted to Belford Hospital.
Meanwhile, the weather was causing widespread disruption. By early yesterday morning, 18cm of snow had fallen at Aberdeen Airport and 17cm in Wick, and there were further falls throughout the day.
Across Grampian, Highland, Orkney, and Shetland, 215 schools were closed.
qA postwoman froze to death after plunging into an icy burn after attending a friend's 40th birthday party. Mrs Catherine Renwick, know as Kay, died of hypothermia after falling 20ft into the Alva Burn from the car park of Alva Masonic Hall where the party was held on Saturday night.
Her body was found on Monday morning. A post-mortem examination revealed that although she sustained minor injuries, none would have caused her death.
Mrs Renwick, 46, a grandmother, lived with her husband and daughter in Menstrie, Clackmannanshire.
qA search was called off this morning for a 31-year-old fisherman who fell overboard north of Shetland from the fishing boat Annandale, registered in Banff. The coastguard said the man had no lifejacket, and the water was at minus 8c.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article