The family of a Scots lawyer who died after falling down a mineshaft have demanded to know why the tragedy happened when a hillwalker last week survived a near-identical 50ft plunge into a tin mine.
Andrew Williams tumbled into a disused pit shaft while walking on a remote path close to St Just, near the tip of Cornwall, last Sunday.
In July 2008, Alison Hume, 44, fell the same distance down a similar mine shaft in Galston, Ayrshire, but died while being raised to the surface after delays in rescuing her.
About 50 rescuers took six hours to bring Mr Williams, 50, after he became stuck on a narrow ledge and he was later treated in hospital. He thanked his rescuers from his bed.
Ms Hume's family want to know why Ms Home died in cases which were so similar. The length of time they spent underground was almost identical
Ms Hume suffered a heart attack and hypothermia after fire chiefs halted her rescue operation on the grounds of health and safety. She died as she was being lifted to the surface at Galston.
Her stepfather Hugh Cowan, 75, of Ayr, said: ”What’s the difference?
“This was a near-identical set of circumstances to Alison’s predicament. Why is it a fire service in one part of the UK can conduct an successful rescue at this depth and one in Scotland can’t?
“Here, it appears the emergency services worked together. They went down. Got a paramedic down too. Got the guy out.
“They could have Alison out and she would still be walking about today.
“This has brought the whole thing back to us.
“It has been a disaster for her two girls; they have never recovered from it.”
Mr Williams was rescued by a huge team who had to overcome far more difficult terrain than rescuers did during the incident in Galston just to reach the mineshaft he was in.
Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service managers said Ms Hume’s plight dominated their thoughts during last weekend’s rescue.
Kathryn Billing, area manager for service delivery, said:”As soon as I heard it was someone down a mine shaft, I said ‘we can’t have another Alison’.
“I knew her case was at the forefront of the mind of the incident commander.
“We knew that hypothermia could be a killer so we made sure we got blankets down to the person right away.
“The different services down here have a fantastic working relationship so we all pull together as a team.
“If it is of any comfort to the family, and please tell them this, the lessons learned from Alison’s case are now being used in practice. We take the loss of anyone’s life as a personal failure.”
Lewis Ramsay, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service’s Director of Response and Resilience, said he was unable to comment on the Cornish incident.
He added: “Our Incident Command procedures have been reviewed and now allow incident commanders to exercise operational discretion where they can deviate from standard operating procedures, but only where a competent and rigorous risk assessment process has been carried out.”
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