What it feels like to: save a friend's life

Saturday 2 February 2013

Cameron McMurdo, 52, photographer.

Photograph: Iain McLean

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Russell Leadbetter

In August 2005 a friend, Jim Williams, and I went climbing on Tower Ridge, Ben Nevis. We were experienced, well-equipped climbers. There was cloud above us but we thought it might clear. We must have been very close to the area where the young climber [22-year-old Ben St Joseph from Essex] tragically lost his life last weekend.

When we reached the mist the rock became slippy. We decided to rope up for it, as it would let me show Jim about climbing Alpine-style – 50ft of rope over his shoulder, another 50ft between us, and the other 50ft over my shoulder. The rope's tied off at the harness so you don't strangle yourself if you fall. I really pushed Jim to rope up, but I don't know what the inclination was other than I had a gut feeling about the path ahead.Jim was leading and was above me. Suddenly, all I heard was the clatter of the stone. I looked up and saw Jim on his back, sliding towards my left and off the ridge. I was on a tuft of grass about two-feet deep by three or four-feet wide. On my left was a drop to the valley floor. In front of me, at mid-thigh level, was a two-feet wide crack in the next tier of rock.On impulse I stepped into it, thinking that if Jim was going to pull me off the mountain, he'd have to lift me out of this crack. If he'd gone past me and the rope had pulled downhill, I would have been yanked straight out, but instead he was sliding down, away to my left. But the shock [when I took Jim's weight on the rope] was a cracker. It took the skin off my hands – your natural reaction is to grab the rope.Jim was now hanging over the side of Tower Ridge. I was stuck in the crack and couldn't do anything. Fortunately, two climbers from Manchester were on the same route below us. One of them abseiled down to where Jim was and pulled him into the rock face and secured him. That allowed me to come off the rope and I abseiled down to Jim.He'd bumped his head and back, and was in pain. I gave him ibuprofen and rang for help. I gave our co-ordinates to the Fort William police and they rang back to say that by chance an RAF mountain-rescue team was on an exercise 100ft below us. Five minutes later one of the crew abseiled down to us. His first question was, "How are you getting on?" I just said, "Not a good question for today!"The mountain-rescue guys arrived as well. They were superb. A navy helicopter took Jim to hospital in Fort William, where he spent the night. I spent the night in the CIC [Charles Inglis Clark memorial hut], where I'd left my belongings, and went down to Fort William the next morning and met Jim in the car park. I was never so relieved in my life to see him.We were both highly experienced – a sixth sense about our mountain environment kicked in – but we were lucky. I remember looking over the edge and I could visualise the scene. In my mind I saw the two us lying on the deck hundreds of feet below.Jim and I rarely talk about what happened. I had had a fall two years earlier. That was one warning shot. What happened to us on Tower Ridge was the last one. I don't go climbing now, just hillwalking. But we both got off Tower Ridge alive, and that's the main thing.

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What it feels like to: save a friend's life

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