Helensburgh Advertiser | News | Rescue stalwart feared lost

Wednesday, 19th November, 2008

Published: Thursday, 28th September, 2006 10:58

Rescue stalwart feared lost

By Rachel Lamb

VILLAGERS in Arrochar are mourning a mountain rescue volunteer who is feared dead after being swept over a waterfall and out to sea.

Thomas MacAuley, 60, a member of the Arrochar Mountain Rescue Team, has been missing for more than a week.

The experienced climber had been walking with a friend on the Isle of Rum when he is understood to have slipped while crossing a stream and was washed away by the heavy current.

His companion is believed to be a member of the Strathclyde Police Mountain Rescue Team.

The alarm was raised at around 5pm on Wednesday 20 September. Rescue workers in the Stornoway Coastguard helicopter and Mallaig lifeboat scoured the coastline for signs of Mr MacAuley, but the search was called off on Thursday night due to severe weather conditions.

Mark Leyland, leader of the Arrochar Mountain Rescue Team, said: `Everybody is gutted. Tam was a key figure in the team. He was very popular and very well liked.

`Like any close knit community, we are very upset and saddened by the news.

`It has come as a shock to us. Tam is a very strong, competent mountaineer. He is one of the last people you would expect to have an accident.

`It just shows it can happen to anybody.

`The last sighting of him was thought to be in the ocean. If he has been in the sea for this length of time there really isn’t much hope of him coming out alive.

`Everyone is trying to come to terms with and cope with it in their own way. One of the things we find frustrating as a rescue team is that it’s not our environment. If it was on a mountain he was lost on, we could be out doing something to help.

`I have spoken to the guy who was with him when it happened and he has taken it very hard.

`As members of a mountain rescue team we have seen a lot of things and we cope, but when it is one of your own, it’s very different.`

Billy Petrie, councillor for Arrochar and Tarbet, added: `On behalf of the people of Arrochar and Tarbet I want to say we are all shocked and saddened by the passing of this highly respected member of the community.

`He was greatly involved in village life and an invaluable member of the Mountain Rescue Team. Mr MacAuley was a credit to his community, and we are the poorer for his passing.`

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