A MORAY SCHOOLGIRL sparked a major air and sea rescue off the coast at Cullen on Sunday afternoon.
Aberdeen Coastguard received a call at round 1.30pm reporting the 11-year-old had been trapped on rocks at Cullen Beach. Lifeboat crews from Buckie and Macduff were alerted – however, they found that the girl had become trapped at a particularly inaccessible spot and the SAR rescue service at Inverness was called to assist.
“The rescue was not in a very accessible place which is why the helicopter was called – the young girl was rescued and is safe and well,” a Coastguard spokesman reported last night, adding: “She was picked up and passed on to her parents.”
As well as the lifeboats and helicopter, coastguard teams from Buckie and Portsoy were called to the scene.
The Cullen rescue was the second conducted in Moray over the weekend with another launched on Saturday when a swimmer got into trouble at Findhorn Bay.
Emergency services were alerted on Saturday afternoon at around 2.45pm when a 25-year-old was spotted appearing to struggle in the water. The Moray Inshore Rescue lifeboat was launched and the crew plucked the man from the water.
He was subsequently taken to Dr Gray’s Hospital in Elgin where he was treated for hypothermia.