Sue Restan
A man was airlifted to hospital this afternoon after falling 300ft on a Highland mountain.
The climber was on the north side of Stac Pollaidh, north of Ullapool in Wester Ross, when he fell from the upper slopes soon after 1.15pm.
Dundonnell Mountain Rescue Team leader Mick Holmes said they received a call from the police at about 1.30pm and immediately called out Rescue 100, the Coastguard search and rescue helicopter based in Stornoway.
He said: “The mountain seems to have been very busy and the police received calls about the incident from a number of different people.
“We were initially told that somebody had fallen off the north side of Stac Pollaidh and was bleeding.”
Mr Holmes added that the man was quickly located as there were a group of people around him and the helicopter flew two members of the mountain rescue team to the scene.
He said: “The team members and the helicopter crew immobilised the man by putting him in a vacuum mat and he was winched into the helicopter.
“He was then flown off the hill and taken to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness.”
The rescue team leader said he did not know what caused the man to fall or the nature of his injuries.
He said: “The weather was fine. There was a slight breeze and visibility was good.”
A police spokesman said there was no information on the climber’s condition.
Dundonnell Mountain Rescue Team covers more than 2,000 square miles of the northern Highlands.
It has bases in Ullapool and Dundonnell and is currently fund-raising for a further base in Dingwall.