EDINBURGH – A climber said he feared he might die as he fell 1,000 feet down a Scottish mountain.
Adam Potter (35) tumbled down the steep slope after slipping near the top of 3,589ft (1,094m) Sgurr Choinnich Mor, around five miles (8km) east of Ben Nevis.
However, rescuers in a Royal Navy helicopter found him standing up reading a map when they arrived on the scene yesterday afternoon.
Mr Potter broke his back in three places but is able to walk and was yesterday recovering in hospital in Glasgow.
Mr Potter, from Glasgow, was climbing with three friends and his dog when he fell at around 2pm yesterday afternoon.
He said: “We got to an area where it is a bit more slippy and a bit icier, so I said ‘let’s get our crampons on and get the axes out behind that rock’, which was about five metres away, and as I walked towards the rock I slipped, and that’s when the fall began to happen.”
He thinks he was knocked unconscious briefly during the fall but then woke up and started to gather up his scattered kit.
He said: “I had lost my hat and gloves and walking poles on the way down, so straight away I put on my spare hat, my spare gloves.”
Mr Potter said the experience has not put him off climbing. He said: “I will be a little bit more cautious next time and perhaps a little bit safer but I could have slipped on the pavement going out the front door. – (PA)