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Beating the odds – Scottish tales of courageous survival

5 May 2017

The amazing rescue of Airdrie surfer Matthew Bryce after 32 hours lost at sea calls to mind the stories of others in Scotland who have faced terrible ordeals but lived to tell the tale.

From walkers caught out by Scottish winter weather, to sailors bearing the brunt of gale force seas, to escaping one of Scotland's worst disasters, here are a few extraordinary stories of people who beat the odds.

10-hours at sea: “My advice is to not panic”

In the same week as Matthew Bryce’s brush with death Scotland witnessed another near miraculous escape when Bulgarian-born diver Ivan Doychev went missing off the coast of Orkney.

After over 10 hours lost at sea, he was rescued by a Russian ship off the coast of Duncansby.

Cairngorm white-out: “The snow was up to our waists”

In January this year, Leicestershire couple Bob and Cathy Elmer spent a terrifying night enduring Arctic conditions in the Cairngorms.

Caught out by the weather and facing waist-deep snow and sub zero temperatures, the couple were eventually rescued by the Cairngorms Mountain Rescue Team.

Lucky escape: “The boat was two-foot deep in water”

In 2012, 72-year-old Gerry Beard was piloting his yacht back home to Wester Ross after a trip to Reykjavik when a force eight gale off the coast of Lewis blew him overboard.

Alone in rough seas, Beard escaped death when, by good fortune, a wave carried him back on deck.

After issuing a Mayday alert he was eventually rescued by Stornoway’s RNLI crew.

Image courtesy of Iain MacIver.

Piper Alpha: “The flames were lighting up the surface of the sea”

On 6 July 1988, the Piper Alpha oil and gas platform 120 miles off the coast of Aberdeen exploded, killing 167 people. It took three weeks for the inferno to be extinguished and it remains the world’s deadliest offshore oil rig disaster.

Only 61 people escaped with their lives that night and, in this extract from Piper Alpha: Fire in the Night, one of the survivors describes his dramatic leap into the North Sea and how a promise to his daughter helped keep him alive.

• The day 167 men perished in the Piper Alpha oil platform disaster

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