A WOMAN fell to her death while hill walking with friends and one of her companions was airlifted to hospital suffering from hypothermia after spending a night on a mountainside on the west coast of Scotland.
An emergency operation to rescue the 56-year-old Renfrew woman was launched on Saturday evening when one of her two friends alerted police after she fell, injuring her head.
The three women were walking on the south Glen Shiel ridge of Sgurr na Sgine in Ross-shire when the accident happened.
One of the women went to get help while the other stayed with her injured friend.
Police in Portree on Skye co-ordinated the rescue, which involved Kintail, Glenelg and Skye mountain rescue teams as well as the coastguard and a Royal Navy helicopter from Prestwick in Ayrshire, which was forced to make an unscheduled landing because of a technical problem and then returned to base.
The emergency services were called at 7pm on Saturday, but weather conditions overnight were severe, with high winds and heavy fog and rain, and the two women were not found by mountain rescuers until 4.40am on Sunday.
However the coastguard helicopter from Stornoway could not reach them until just before 8am because of the weather conditions.
The woman who fell was already dead and her 55-year-old companion, who was suffering from hypothermia, was airlifted to the Mackinnon Memorial Hospital in Broadford on Skye by a coastguard helicopter from Stornoway. Her condition was not said to be life-threatening. Sergeant Alec Forbes said at Portree police station: ''The cloud base was low and the first opportunity in the weather window was at around a quarter to eight.
''They were airlifted off at the first opportunity.''
The name of the victim will not be released until family members have been informed.
Meanwhile, another rescue was mounted on nearby Skye after police received reports of a man falling at Corrie Lagan in the Cuillin mountains at 3pm on Saturday.
Mountain rescuers were forced to carry him below the cloud base to allow the Stornoway coastguard helicopter to reach him.
He was also taken to the Mackinnon Memorial Hospital, where he was treated for leg injuries.
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