A man was taken to hospital yesterday after slipping a disc in his back while working onboard a trawler.
Local lifeboat volunteers joined a coastguard crew, firefighters and paramedics in an effort to safely transfer the man from the boat at Peterhead harbour.
The man was working aboard the Whitby-built Jubilee Spirit when he hurt himself shortly after 9.30am.
The Grimsby-registered trawler was moored at Birnie’s Pier in the heart of the port when the incident happened, but due to the vessel’s position in the water it was deemed too challenging to hoist the casualty onto the quay.
Instead the lifeboat was dispatched from its nearby slip and the volunteer crew, coordinating with a coastguard team and fire and rescue crew on the dock, transferred the injured man off the trawler.
Afterwards, Peterhead lifeboat spokesman David Anderson said: “The RNLI Peterhead Tamar Lifeboat The Misses Robertson of Kintail was requested to launch by Aberdeen Coastguard today at 9.40am to respond with its volunteer crew to aid a casualty injured on board a local fishing boat in Peterhead harbour.
“The injured casualty was transferred to the lifeboat and then taken to the lifeboat berth to be transferred to a waiting ambulance.”
The crew was stood down at around 11am after the casualty – whose condition is not thought to have been serious – was transferred to the ambulance.
Mr Anderson later confirmed the man had suffered a slipped disc while working on the deck of the vessel.