If you need immediate assistance, please dial 999 and ask for POLICE

The team were called out at 1420, Saturday 25th February, to rescue a member of a walking party who had slipped down a steep snow slope on Ben Cruachan and sustained a chest injury.
A search was mounted in the area where the party had initially been reported but they were not found. So the team used a new piece of software that enables a person to be located via their smartphone. This worked and the casualty was eventually found on steep snowy and exposed terrain on the north side of Cruachan ridge.

A 50 m snow trench had to be dug by the team to move the casualty back onto the main ridge. There then followed a long and tiring descent carrying the casualty by stretcher off the hill to waiting vehicles. The casualty was then transferred by ambulance to Oban hospital for treatment.

The team were called out  around 7pm to search for two walkers who had got benighted and lost in cloud on the Ben Achallader - Ben a Creachain ridge. They were not carrying head torches, map or compass and lost their bearings in the dark and cloud.

Several pairs of team members began searching the ridge from either end. Fortunately for the lost walkers one of them managed to download a smart phone app that allowed him to find their latitude and longtitude co-ordinates via his phone GPS. The callout manager had been in touch with them when the callout first came in and so they had his home phone number. They called this and gave their co-ordinates to his wife who relayed them to the callout manager via Oban police. He converted them to ordnance survey grid references and pinpointed them on top of Ben a Creachain. He then radio'd the teams on the hill to tell them to make for the walkers location. They were eventually found just before midnight, cold but otherwise well, and escorted off the hill by 2am.

Callout came at 1539. 46 year old male with possible broken ankle on Northern slopes of Ben Sguillard. Had got into difficult steep ground on way off the top, tripped and fell, injuring his ankle.

Rescue 177 helicopter from HMS Gannet, Prestwick joined the team at 1705 and flew 3 members up the hill. They were winched down to casualty along with winchman and gave him treatment before he and everyone were all winched back on board and brought back to rv. Casualty was then taken to Belford Hospital in Fort William where he was found to have a bad sprain and fortunately no fracture. Everyone returned home by 7pm.