A FEMALE ice climber has been rescued off the Cairngorms after being hit by a 15-tonne section of a frozen waterfall.
The woman, who was attached by a rope, fell over 160ft on a frozen waterfall known as Oui Oui on Creag Dubh near Newtonmore, suffering serious head injuries.
She was hit by a 10-foot wide section of another frozen waterfall known for its instability.
Army trauma doctor Christine Paterson from Inverness who had just returned from Afghanistan was climbing nearby and was able to provide first aid and stay with the casualty until Cairngorm Mountain Rescue arrived.
The team carried the woman on a stretcher down to the road following the accident at around 1pm yesterday, where they were met by an ambulance which took her to Raigmore Hospital, Inverness.
Mrs Paterson had been climbing with her husband Gary Kinsey. He said: "The block of ice that came away was about three metres wide, six metres high, and a metre thick.
"She was swept away. The guys below said she was engulfed by it, but she didn't actually hit the ground.
"She was knocked unconscious for about 30 seconds. I thought she was dead, but then she started screaming.
"She had a head injury to her right temporal area, but it wasn't bleeding much and she had a hat on so I just left it alone."
The rescue comes just six days after two men and two women died in the worst avalanche disaster that Glen Coe has seen.
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