A climber who fell 800ft down a mountain after stepping over a cliff has told how he feels lucky to have survived.
Ollie Daniel, 25, was walking in the Coire Sputan Dearg area in the Southern Cairngorms when the accident happened at around 3.30pm on Sunday.
A major rescue operation was launched and he was found at around 6.30pm and airlifted to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
Mr Daniel was with two other men, including his father, when he fell.
He said: "We were navigating in near zero visibility in a white-out.
"As I was navigating I put my foot out and on to nothing, and fell down about 800ft of sheer cliff. You figure you have had it."
He said that he slid part of the way while at other times he was freefalling.
Mr Daniel, from Cambridge, suffered nine broken ribs, a broken wrist, liver and lung injuries, as well as cuts and bruises, and said he felt lucky to be alive.
"You could not reasonably expect to fall down that cliff and survive, then mountain rescue to find me and rescue me. It's credit to them."
The other two men in his party raised the alarm.
His father James Daniel added: "We were walking in a three, Ollie was at the front and I was at the back.
"He put his foot down, let out a shout, and disappeared."
The rescue operation involved Braemar, Police Scotland and Aberdeen Mountain Rescue Teams.
Police Scotland said the casualty was evacuated by stretcher in ''challenging conditions'', then airlifted to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary by a Royal Air Force rescue helicopter.
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