Rescue

A few days ago I happened to write about the rescue services which serve us here in the Hebrides.  On Saturday I was suddenly shaken by a helicopter flying low directly over the house.  Any helicopter makes considerable air pressure waves and they are even more obvious if you are directly underneath.  So I grabbed the camera and went outside.  The chopper was flying across the valley and I  saw that it was flying towards a group of people which included ambulance personnel. 

The unfortunate casualty had been in an accident involving one of her horses (I assume that she'd been riding it).   The incident took 10 minutes from beginning to end (first to last photo).

Training Exercise

It was happening a few miles out in The Minch so was at the limit of my camera’s capabilities but it still looked pretty spectacular with the Coastguard helicopter coming up to the back of the fast moving lifeboat to lift a ‘casualty’ from its afterdeck.  I was sure that I’d done a post on the Lifeboat when she was hauling her tender on board in the Bay last year but it’s not coming up in the index.  Odd.  It would have given you an idea of how big she is.

 

The Coastguard Helicopter

Just outside the view from my house is Bayble Island.  It can, however, be seen from Pat and Dave’s house on the other side of the Valley.  When I was there a few days ago the Coastguard helicopter was practising its rescue functions using the Island as it often does.  It’s particularly good for the purpose because the wind (and it was windy that day) means that there is a lot of air turbulence testing the pilot’s skill to the limits.

Coastguard Helicopter

The Coastguard Helicopter wanders around the area by the house quite a lot on training runs. This was a rather odd flypast though because the chopper appeared to be so low over the water as to be below the level of the house.