A Moray water sports company has moved to reassure customers after a client had to be rescued following a white water rafting accident on the River Findhorn.
A young woman was winched more than 200ft to safety from a gully along from Randolph’s Leap when an expedition went awry on Wednesday.
Last night, Jim Davis, who has run trips along the river with the Ace Adventures group since 2006, revealed the casualty had suffered a bruised calf after the raft she was in capsized.
He applauded rescuers for their efforts to aid the injured woman, and said his firm would endeavour to handle emergency situations itself in future.
Mr Davis said: “The injured woman just had a bruised calf and was released from Dr Gray’s hospital in Elgin pretty much straight after she got there.
“I think everyone could see it wasn’t too serious an injury, but we have had people calling to ask if we are still running trips following it.
“White water rafting is the safest adventure activity people can go on,” he insisted.
Mr Davis said communication issues caused by poor phone signal in the area triggered a large response to what turned out to be a fairly minor injury.
“While I appreciate that the coastguard and fire service did an excellent job, more people turned up than what was required and we could have dealt with the injured party ourselves,” he said.
“Our policy will change to taking care of any non-life threatening emergency ourselves in the future where we can, it seems more efficient that way.”
The woman became injured after her raft encountered rapid waters near the Sluie Walk area, just down from Randolph’s Leap, at 3.45pm on Wednesday afternoon.
More than a dozen fire brigade and coastguard personnel joined forces to pull the stricken adventurer to safety.
Paramedics also arrived on the scene at 6.45pm to treat her as she reached the top of the cliff.
A spokesman for the coastguard service said: “If we get a call that involves a technical rescue such as we had in this case, our standard response is to use two teams and a helicopter.
“The fire service has the ability to help on land, and we called them because the River Findhorn is a tricky area and it’s better having more people than not enough.”