Helicopter Rescue

April 12th, 2011

On Sunday night, Colin and I were up really late finishing off painting the kitchen and I went up to bed at about 2am. I was pulling down the blind in the bedroom when I saw lights in the sky off in the distance coming closer and closer at a great speed. At first I had no idea what this was until I heard the sound of a helicopter. What was going on?

On opening the window the sound was deafening as the helicopter got closer and closer with it’s search lights moving along the cliffs just to the left of our house. Then I noticed a team of folk in fluorescent jackets along the coastal path and realised that they must be searching for someone – maybe someone had fallen over the edge?

A man was lowered down from the helicopter and dropped into the dense bushes and then the helicopter flew off and did a few circuits off in the distance. In the meantime some men climbed down the cliff and it seemed like ages before they re-emerged. The helicopter came back and helped winch a man up and over to the old putting green. As it was so dark we couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead – until we heard him swearing and we realised he was incredibly drunk and not at all grateful for being rescued.

They were too far away for us to really hear what was going on but we did hear lots of swearing from the man.

Our focus soon returned to the helicopter though, which eventually landed on the beach so that the rescue guy who was lowered down, could get back on board.

He walked along the beach, got in, and then the helicopter quickly rose and flew off into the darkness.

The next morning Colin bumped into the local coastguard who was there the previous night and found out that it had possible been a suicide attempt and that the rescue helicopter had flown all the way over from Northumberland!

Posted in Life in Kinghorn |