Fishermen honoured for saving life of fellow crewman

Published on 24/03/2012 01:59

A FISHING crew have been honoured for their courage after saving the life of a colleague who fell overboard into the North Sea.

Bill Stephen lost consciousness after his foot became entangled in fishing gear on the Fraserburgh-registered Renown and he was swept into the water off the coast of Norway on 1 May last year.

His colleagues battled to get him back on board before resuscitating him and calling for help.

He was airlifted to a hospital in Norway where he spent several weeks before he was fit enough to return home.

Skipper James Buchan Jnr, 36, and his crew James Hendry, James McKay, both 32, and Ewan Lambert, 42, were presented with Royal Humane Society awards for their bravery on Thursday night.

Yesterday, Mr Buchan, 36, of Inverallochy, said he was proud of his crew and their efforts to save Mr Stephen’s life.

The team had just launched nets off the side of the boat when the accident happened about 60 miles off Norway. “Mr Stephen placed his foot into a bit of wire attached to the net. It snagged round his ankle and pulled him straight over,” Mr Buchan said.

Mr McKay grabbed hold of his colleague and tried to pull him back to safety, but the weight of the fishing gear attached to his leg was too heavy.

Mr Buchan continued: “There was no way to stop the process. The weight was too much for him to hold. He had to let him go and he ended up over the side.

“Mr Stephen was suspended between the vessel and the sea, bobbing in and out of the water.Speed was really an issue.”

Realising that there was no way of manually pulling Mr Stephen back into the vessel, the team then used a powerblock, a large metal pulley, to haul the sinking net and Mr Stephen back in.

Mr Stephen, of Cairnbulg, Aberdeenshire, said he couldn’t thank the crew enough.

“If it hadn’t been for them, I would have been just a name on a memorial wall,” he said. “The surgeon in Norway told me that medically I shouldn’t be here.”