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Scotland & NI 188/01
2 September 2001

DISTRICT NURSE DELIVERS LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

Clyde Coastguard has come under fire after staff asked a district nurse for directions to an Argyll island when a search was launched for a missing sailor. See this story.

District nurse Esther MacRae claims she came to the rescue, in response to an emergency call with a difference, when she informed a trainee coastguard employee where to find the island of Ulva on the map.

Mrs. MacRae said she received a telephone call from Clyde Coastguard, late on Tuesday night, 28th August 2001, after a lone sailor was reported missing en route from Ulva to the island of Coll.

Critics have since claimed that Clyde and Stornoway Coastguard, who took control of Oban's patch, would lack the necessary local knowledge.

Coastguard News can understand that trainee coastguards may not be up to speed with local knowledge, but why was there the need to make such a phone call. Was there no one else in the ops room for the trainee to ask? Answers please to Coastguard News.

Apology:

The above item fails to mention the fact that the call from the rescue centre was being made to a member of the local cliff rescue team (CRT) and it was his wife that answered, the impression from the article is that she was called in person for the fact that she is a DN with local knowledge. This was not the case.