An injured dog was just one of five rescues for the Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team yesterday.
Maggie, a 35kg Akbash dog became stranded on the summit of Ben Nevis on Saturday after hurting her paws.
The three young women scaling the peak with the dog tried to carry her down the 4,400ft when she became unable to move.
But with darkness fast approaching, they called for help at 8pm.
Five members of Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team were flown to the top of Ben Nevis by the Inverness Coastguard helicopter, which had just transported a fallen walker from Glencoe to the Belford Hospital in Fort William.
The walkers managed to meet their rescuers half way.
Maggie was then transferred onto a stretcher before being carried down the mountain to a waiting all-terrain vehicle (ATV).
‘Occasionally we will rescue a dog but it is unusual’
Lochaber MRT leader Donald Paterson said the call came after multiple other rescues.
He said: “As we were about to drive back to the base, we got another call for Maggie the dog which was interesting. They were high on the summit plateau, and of course at which point I thought we are just going to have to decline it.
“I spoke to the woman and she said it was a Turkish mountain dog. All his pads had been damaged on the rocks so its paws were all shredded.
“Ultimately, they were trying their hardest to get the dog down the mountain but it just kept on sitting and lying there so they were struggling to get the dog down.
“Low and behold, there was a call-out at Glencoe so the helicopter came in, dropped the casualty off from Glencoe in Fort William and then they uplifted five members onto the top and they walked down and met the group.”
Busy day for rescuers
The group were among scores of people scaling Ben Nevis on Saturday.
The Lochaber-based rescue team responded to five separate call-outs on Saturday, ranging from fractures to heat related incidents.
The team were on call for more than 14 hours.
The first call was for a walker who suffered a serious head injury in a fall at about 11am. The casualty was located before being flown to Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Their condition is known.
Rescuers also helped a young woman who had suffered an ankle injury as well as two heat stoke victims.
Mr Paterson commended the young woman’s efforts in attempting to descend the hill by herself, despite her condition.
He added: “She tried quite valiantly for a couple of hours to get herself down but she was just struggling. She got herself down to about half way so we used the ATV (all-terrain vehicle) to go up to half way and get her. Just at the same time as this call, there was a heat stroke incident which came in but that was lower down on the path, so those two ran concurrently.
“We were literally just getting back in when we got another report of a collapsed heat stroke on the lower part of the path again. We went up and got her and came back down and put her in the back of the ambulance.”
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