An injured man was airlifted to hospital yesterday after the construction vehicle he was driving plunged 50ft down an embankment in a remote part of the Highlands.
The drama unfolded in “treacherous” snowy road conditions just after 9am on the B849 between Lochaline and Bunavullin, near Drimnin in Morvern, Lochaber.
An eyewitness who saw the crashed vehicle described it as a “load-all industrial forklift,” and said: “It was in some mess, the load-all was in bits. All the cab is ripped off.”
It is understood that the casualty, a man in his twenties, did not sustain life-threatening injuries, however he was taken by air ambulance to hospital in Glasgow.
A spokesman for the fire service said: “The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service was alerted to reports of a vehicle which had travelled down an embankment at 9.09am on Monday.
“Operations Control mobilised two fire appliances to the B849, between Lochaline and Bunavullin.
“Firefighters assisted their emergency service colleagues by helping to make the area safe and by providing treatment to the vehicle’s occupant.
“The vehicle had gone 50ft down an embankment. We assisted to retrieve the casualty. It was just blankets and oxygen, we didn’t require any specialist equipment.
“One casualty was thereafter taken to hospital by air ambulance.”
A police spokeswoman said: “We received a call around 9.20am from the fire service asking for assistance with a mountain rescue – a vehicle 50ft down an embankment at B849 Lochaline Killundine. The male driver wasn’t trapped but was injured.
“We made contact with Glencoe Mountain Rescue who attended to assist.”
A Scottish Ambulance Spokesman added: “We received a call at 8.58am to attend a road traffic incident on the B849, near the Killundine Estate. We dispatched one ambulance and an air ambulance helicopter. One male patient in his 20s was airlifted to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Glasgow.”
Andy Nelson, Team Leader of Glencoe Mountain Rescue, said: “The fire service managed to extract the casualty without our help. The team was arriving when the casualty was being put on the air ambulance.
“I know from what the lads were saying, the roads were treacherous with snow so the fire service did a great job managing to retrieve the casualty from the embankment.”
