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| The Monument at Straiton |
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| The group. |
First of all let me apologise for the lack of blogs recently as most of my local readers will have learnt I have had a serious accident on the walk I was leading for Ayr and District Ramblers on Sunday November 25th. Details will follow giving more imfo. etc.etc.On rather damp misty day 15 of us left Straiton to climb Monument Hill over to Largs, Turgenev and finally Auchenroy where the group had a lunch stop in the clearing skies affording us views down to the coast at Irvine.From here we dropped down into Craigengillan Estate walking on paths and tracks until we came close to Holm Farm. Unfortunately it was here on a rather slippy steep hill that I took a tumble and broke two bones in my leg and dislocated my ankle. I was lying on the hillside with my leg going straight down and my foot twisted round at a very awkward and extremely painful angle.It was at this point I knew we had an emergency on our hands and as is normal the leader takes charge of the situation and plans the best course of action. However this was not possible as I was the leader so I nominated Madam Vice as incident co-ordinator. She used my phone and dialled 999 (911 in the USA) to alert the emergency services of our location taken off the GPS .information of our surrounding terrain, age of victim, details of injuries sustained and generally any other information the controller asks. As in a previous emergency we know not to ask for a helicopter that is their decision which proved useful as they took a couple of minutes to do their assessment and called Madam Vice back to inform her that the
air ambulance helicopter had been dispatched from Glasgow and would arrive with us in approximately 15-20 minutes.At this point everyone of the group were doing their best to keep me warm with emergency blankets ,additional warm clothing and generally talking to me to stop me from going into shock. I asked one of our new members who is very good with the camera if he woud do some video and photos of the rescue which he agreed to do with a little bit of trepidation I hasten to add. The results
can be viewed in this link. Anne and I watch it regularly making us feel rather emotional thinking how lucky I was to have such a wonderful team of ramblers with me coupled with all the emergency services involved. Once I arrived at the hospital in Ayr a well rehearsed procedure was put into place with upmost efficiency to assess my injuries resulting in me being made fairly comfortable in a reletively short period of time. Dislocated ankle was straightened(ouch) leg x -rayed ,operation to insert a metal plate complete with pins and out of hospital in 4 days. I am not going to go into every detail of my treatment except to say it was text book professionalism administered in the highest possible standard.
I am now at home recuperating with a surgical moon boot on my foot which gives me support when I try to move about. Anne is looking after me with lots of TLC thrown in she is absolutely marvellous and I could not go through all this without her.My thanks must go firstly to the emergency services involved, the members of ADRC who were with me on that fateful day and finally Madam Vice whose calm level headedness when she took control of a very serious medical emergency, she was my ROCK as I lay there seriously injured on a lonely wet mucky hillside near to Dalmellington. Anne and I would like to take this opportunity of expressing our gratitude to each and everyone of you who were involved in my rescue and subsequent treatment.Obviusly I will not be rambling for some time however I mean to continue with the blog as I find it a way to keep in touch with all you bloggers out there in cyberspace.
Plese also read the comments below
the Newton Stewart blogger has composed some verses that are very amusing.
