Hillwalker saved after lucky break
Published: September 6, 2003
A Hillwalker who was stranded on Skye’s Cuillin mountains for 28 hours has told how a chance break in the clouds saved his life.
Just as the battery on his mobile phone began to die, Ian Ratcliffe spotted rescue helicopters and was able to guide them to his location when the clouds briefly lifted.
Drenched and on the brink of hypothermia, Mr Ratcliffe, from Wormit in Fife, was winched to safety from the gully which he had fallen into the previous day. Mountain rescuers say the 41-year-old manager of Dundee’s Millet’s store is lucky to be alive.
The Munrobagger is an experienced hillwalker and had been to the Cuillins before. But things went wrong for him this time as the weather turned nasty and he lost his way.
Yesterday, recovering at home, an exhausted Mr Ratcliffe talked about his ordeal.
“I just got disorientated and made a mistake with the navigation. I thought I was somewhere I wasn’t and tried to get back to where I wanted to be. I made a few mistakes and probably made a few wrong choices. I slipped a bit and fell down a gully.”
Mr Ratcliffe suffered only cuts and bruises during his fall. But he could see there was no way out and he still did not know where he was.
With winds blowing up to a Force 7 gale the walker quickly began to freeze.
He said: “I just decided I couldn’t get up or down, switched my mobile phone on, and thankfully got a signal and called for help.”
His call to rescuers was made at around 2.45pm on Wednesday. A full-scale search was launched with police, Skye Mountain Rescue Team and the Coastguard all mobilised to scour the rugged Cuillins mountain range for Mr Ratcliffe. But because of the misty weather Mr Ratcliffe could not see any landmarks to help the rescuers figure out where he was. A day of frustration for rescuers followed as they searched a large chunk of the Cuillins range, between Sgurr nan Eag and Sgurr Dubh Mor, latterly concentrating on Sgurr Dubh Mor.
As the weather got worse, police were so concerned about finding the walker before hypothermia set in that they scrambled the RAF. Seventeen members of RAF Leuchars Mountain Rescue Team and Kintail Mountain Rescue Team joined the hunt, with a second helicopter from RAF Kinloss.
With no food left, and only a half-litre of soft drink, Mr Ratcliffe lay huddled against the wind and rain in his bivvy bag.
Concern grew at one point when Mr Ratcliffe told the rescue operation he thought he was imagining the sound of helicopters - a sign that he was beginning to suffer from exposure.
But Mr Ratcliffe said he refused to panic throughout his ordeal: “You just get on with it, you haven’t got any choice,” he said.
Rescuers were growing increasingly concerned as the search passed into the second day. Things then took a turn for the better, said Mr Ratcliffe.
He added: “The clouds lifted just briefly and I could see where I was, and I was able to tell the rescue people giving them a brief description.
“The guy had a better idea where I was then, and I could also hear the helicopters. I could tell them if they were just to the right of me or if they were going away - that gave them a better idea of where to look.”
At around 7pm on Thursday, the clouds lifted again and Mr Ratcliffe was finally able to see the helicopters.
With the last dregs of his phone’s battery he called his rescuers and guided them down.
“I was very grateful to see them,” he said.
He was winched up to the helicopter and taken to Broadford Hospital for treatment.
He drove back to his home in Fife yesterday, where he enjoyed a hot shower and went to bed.
Thanking his rescuers Mr Ratcliffe said: “They were brilliant. I would like to pay tribute to them. They obviously had the same weather I had and had to go stumbling around looking for me in it. I am really thankful to them.”
But he said he had not been put off hillwalking by the experience: “It’s like if you fall off a horse, you get back on and hopefully you learn from it. There are times when you make mistakes but the Cuillins are fairly unforgiving.
“A doctor went missing about a month ago, and he hasn’t been found, so I would say I’m pretty lucky.”
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