A nationwide loss of broadband meant a Highland mountain rescue team had to resort to the “old way” of calling out members for a rescue on Ben Nevis.
Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team received a call to an injured walker on the 4,409ft mountain at about 6.45pm last night and quickly discovered their usual internet-based call-out system was not working.
Instead, they had to make telephone calls to members to raise the assistance required.
A BT spokesman said: “I can confirm there was a short, nationwide broadband outage last night.
“At this stage, I can’t confirm the number of lines which were impacted as the issue remains under investigation.”
He added that problem began at around 6pm and lasted around two hours.
He said: “We would like to apologies for any inconvenience caused.”
Other emergency services said they had been unaffected by the outage as they did not use internet-based systems for emergency calls.
Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team secretary Miller Harris said: “We received a call from the police saying a man had a suspected broken ankle at Halfway Lochan.
“He was coming down the hill with his female walking partner when he went over on his ankle on one of the drainage ditches across the footpath.
“The RAF helicopter, Rescue 137, was available so they picked him up and flew him to the rescue base, while six team members stood by in case they were needed. The casualty was then taken to Belford Hospital in Fort William by road ambulance.”
He added that he did not know whether the man, who was in his 20s, had broken his ankle and he had no information about his condition.
Mr Harris explained that the most difficult part of the rescue was being unable to use their usual call-out system.
He said: “We normally send out a text on an internet-based call system so we ended up having to go back to the old way of phoning people.
“We called BT to find out what the problem was and were told that six million people were without internet.”