Injured climber crawls 4 hours to reach safety of storage box

Published on Thursday 31 January 2008 21:19

TRAPPED alone in the "white hell" of a blizzard with his leg injured, Bill Church knew he only had one chance of survival.

The 61-year-old was climbing near Braemar when he was swept from a gully by an avalanche and left stranded miles from safety as the worst storm of the winter battered the mountainside.

His only hope was a kilometre from where he lay injured, a metal box used by mountain rescue teams to store kit.

As the blizzard battered him, Mr Church began an agonising crawl in a desperate attempt to save himself. Four hours later, having dragged himself through drifting snow, the veteran climber arrived exhausted at the box. Discarding the ropes and other equipment it contained, he clambered in, wrapped himself in a bivvy bag, closed the lid and waited for help.

Rescuers believe the box, no bigger than an average office desk, probably saved his life. For more than 11 hours it sheltered him as he fought to survive in the atrocious blizzards, which had already forced many of his would-be rescuers to retreat from the mountainside.

The retired eye surgeon suffered a sprained ankle and an injured thumb after being swept 200 metres down Blackspout Gully, on the northern flank of the 3,786ft peak of Lochnagar on the Queen's Balmoral Estate.

After spending the day recovering in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Mr Church was allowed to return to the home he shares with his wife Jane in Bridge of Don, Aberdeen.

Looking forward to a cup of tea, he said: "I feel very lucky and very relieved. I'm just glad I'm here with Jane and that I'm back in one piece."

He also told how he took the first opportunity to ring his worried wife after being rescued. He said: "All I could say was 'sorry'. I knew she'd been up all night and would have been out of her mind with worry."

Inspector Andrew Todd of Grampian Police, who helped co-ordinate the rescue, said yesterday: "I think he is very lucky – but you make your own luck.

"It's just a small, desk-sized box. It certainly wasn't designed for shelter. But if he hadn't used it in that way, then there's no way he would have survived. We might never have found him.

"Members of the team were driven back several times because of the weather, which tells you how bad it was up there."

Mr Church's ordeal began shortly after midday on Wednesday as he tackled the cliff face alone.

"I was climbing the left-hand branch of the gully and was about 12 metres from the top when a cornice broke off above me, and the resulting avalanche of snow swept me away," he said. "I came to rest some 200m further down the gully. I couldn't easily stand, so I crawled and slid my way across the snow to where a first-aid box was located."

Less than five hours later, a major search and rescue operation began after his wife contacted the police to tell them her husband was overdue. Almost 60 mountain rescue personnel from five teams – Aberdeen, Grampian Police, Braemar, RAF Lossiemouth and RAF Kinloss – set out just before midnight in steadily worsening weather.

"The conditions last night were horrendous – a complete white-out with very, very high winds, heavy snow and sleet," said Insp Todd. "It was enough to stop some of the rescuers getting to their search areas.

"Those who did get into their search areas were pretty ineffective because of the conditions. They could hardly see their hands in front of their faces, but they stuck with it."

Insp Todd's wife, PC Alison Todd, a member of the Grampian Police mountain rescue team, was one of the four rescuers who found Mr Church at about 4am yesterday. She was alerted to his position by her rescue dog, Midge.

The team had been sent to check the emergency box as a matter of routine. "We opened up the box and, hey presto, there was our gentleman inside," she said. "He was quite comfortable and quite warm (but] in a bit of pain because of his injuries.

"He said, 'I didn't think I'd expect to see you tonight – I thought it would be first thing in the morning. Thank you very much for coming'.

"We gave him some extra food and a few bits of extra clothing just to make sure that he was sufficiently clad and popped the lid back down and waited for the rescue teams to arrive with a stretcher."

Due to the atrocious conditions, it took almost 50 rescue team members to carry Mr Church off the hill to a waiting all-terrain vehicle. An RAF Sea King helicopter took him to hospital.

Last night, Mr Church said the accident would not force him to give up climbing, saying: "I'll definitely go up on the mountains again. There is no way I would want to stop climbing. You just learn from your mistakes."