Parents of premature twins praise Royal Navy for rescue effort

It took a crew from HMS Gannet a near nine-hour round trip to pick up the pair from Stornoway in the Western Isles and take them to a specialist baby unit in Glasgow after they were born six weeks early.

The pair weighed just 2.22kg and 2.69kg respectively when they were born on Thursday, March 11, and needed specialist hospital treatment.

The twin's parents, Fiona and Peter McDonald, who are on the ward at Glasgow's Southern General Hospital where their twin sons were "thriving", today paid tribute to the crew.

Mr and Mrs McDonald said: "We are extremely grateful to everyone involved. The babies are doing really well and we hope to be heading home later this week."

The four-strong team from HMS Gannet, the UK's busiest helicopter search and rescue station, set out from Prestwick shortly after 7pm on Thursday and arrived at Glasgow at 3.20am.

After collecting two incubators and a specialist team from the neo-natal transporter unit from Glasgow, they arrived on Stornoway shortly after 10pm.

The team, led by Charlie Skeoch, consultant neo-natologist and lead consultant with the neo-natal transport service, took three hours to check the twins were stable, before tucking them in to their incubators and loading them on to the Sea King vessel and taking them to Glasgow.

Pilot Lieutenant Andy Ellis said: "It's a real pleasure to be able to help like this.

"After picking the team up from Glasgow Airport, we had some pretty tricky flying on the way up, with strong headwinds, heavy showers reducing visibility, low cloud base and we had to go round islands for clearer conditions.

"But we tried to get through as quickly as possible. And the journey back down was much quicker and straightforward.

"It was a good result from our perspective and it's great to hear that the babies are doing well – which is the most important thing; that's what it was all about – a happy ending."