Alison Hume inquiry: Six hours trapped in a freezing mineshaft proved too much for Alison

Her daughter Jayne, 17, who had been with her at their relatives’ house, raised the alarm after returning home later to find her mother not there.

At 2:13am it was she who called Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Control Room, after having finally found her mother, who was “whimpering” inside the shaft. Jayne told the staff her mother had fallen down “a massive, massive, massive hole”. Fire engines arrived just before 2:30am, with the ambulance and police getting there soon after.

Three-quarters of an hour later, one of the firefighters there, Alexander Dunn, volunteered to be lowered down into the shaft with oxygen and first aid equipment in order to assess her condition. He moved her out of the water in which she was lying and wrapped her in blankets.

It was here, yesterday’s report says, that the grave danger of hypothermia should have been considered – and therefore the need to get Alison out quickly. Mr Dunn provided her with oxygen and awaited orders.

Up above, the watch commander and his crew were devising a plan to get Alison up to the surface, by the use of a basket stretcher. They found a telegraph pole to anchor a rescue line. The commanders in charge agreed and a paramedic and firefighters began to don their harnesses and got ready to enter the shaft. At this point, another more senior commander, called Paul Stewart, arrived at the scene.

After being made aware of the plans, he called for a halt. The report declares that he then “made a decision that neither the paramedic nor the crew should enter the collapsed shaft”. He believed, the report declares, there was “insufficient control at the incident” – a view based on a number of factors such as the lack of a sufficient cordon around the hole.

Experts at Strathclyde Police Mountain Rescue team were called in, on the assumption they could get to the incident in around 40 minutes. The decision not to allow the firefighters present to go down was made on the commander’s “understanding of Strathclyde fire and rescue policy on line rescue”– a reference to a policy statement issued a few months earlier which had cautioned against such risk.

Yesterday’s report also notes the difficulty of the situation in Galston for commanders, given the potential risks involved to the firefighters.

Unfortunately, the police team did not arrive quickly, and only began to make their rescue attempt at 6:21am – three hours after the firefighters had begun to make preparations to get Alison out. In the intervening time, all Mr Dunn, still in the shaft, could do was comfort her.

By the time she was rescued, at 7:42am, she was “profoundly hypothermic” with a core temperature of 24 degrees – 24 degrees – 13 degrees below normal. She suffered a heart attack while being taken to the surface and later died in Crosshouse Hospital, Kilmarnock.

In his findings after the fatal accident inquiry, Sheriff Derek Leslie said the decision by senior officers to leave Mrs Hume in freezing conditions, having suffered several serious injuries, was “in conflict with the greater aims of a rescue service”.

He added: “A woman died who had not only sustained survivable, though life-threatening, injuries, but who had also ultimately suffered and died from acute hypothermia, brought about by a prolonged period down a mineshaft.”

He added: “There is little doubt that the rank-and-file firefighters in attendance were anxious to conduct a rescue as quickly as possible but were prevented from doing so by the superiors.”