Banff man's amazing river escape
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A BANFF camper "sleepwalked" into Scotland’s fastest-flowing river and lived to tell the tale almost without a scratch.
Carer John Ord, who woke up soaking in woods on the opposite bank of the River Spey from where he had pitched his tent a quarter of a mile away, admitted: "I am lucky to be alive."
Mr Ord (47) had been on a hillwalking trip with his brother-in-law, James Mackintosh (36), from Macduff, and they decided to camp on a small beach in an area known as the Bathing Pool by the Spey, just off the A95 in Grantown last Thursday.
Mr Ord, from Banff, explained: "It was a beautiful night. We put up our two-man tent, had something to eat and sat around drinking a couple of beers.
"James went to bed, and I stayed sitting outside, but I must have dozed off. The next thing I knew, I was soaking wet from the neck down, in the dark, in the middle of some woods.
"I don’t think I fell in, as the cowboy hat I had been wearing was bone-dry. I must have sleepwalked in the river and swum along. I think If I had woken up in the water, I would have drowned!"
Mr Ord was in a confused state, but he headed through the trees to a light which he thought was coming from a house. His mobile phone was soaked, so he could not alert anyone to his plight.
He went on: "The light turned out to be a building on an industrial estate, and I banged on the doors because I thought somebody would be inside.
"I slowly realised it must have been about 2am, so there was no-one around."
Mr Ord decided that the only thing he could do was set off the alarm on the premises – which turned out to be the Spey Valley Smokehouse on the Achnagonlin Industrial Estate – by hitting a door with his heel. He then waited for the police to arrive.
He said: "I told two officers what had happened, but I didn’t think they believed that I had sleepwalked and swum down the river.
"However, I managed to convince them that I hadn’t been trying to break into the Smokehouse, and they took me back to the tent in their patrol car."
In the meantime, Mr Mackintosh, from Macduff, had woken in the tent, gone outside and discovered that his brother-in-law had disappeared. Mr Ord’s chair had toppled over into the sand.
Mr Mackintosh said: "I searched in the woods near our tent in case John had got lost, and along the riverbank, but couldn’t find him.
"I phoned John’s wfe, my sister Christina, in case he had been in touch, but he hadn’t.
"I was so worried that I was getting to the stage where I was expecting to find a corpse. Then I saw the police car coming down the main road with John inside it."
Mr Ord was given some warm clothes and taken by ambulance to Aviemore medical practice for a check-up, but he was fine apart from some scratches sustained while making his way through the woods to the Smokehouse.
He said: "The police officers were great. I got to bed about 5am, and slept very well, believe you me."
Mr Ord added: "I have sleptwalked at home before, but never outdoors. I am lucky to be alive, I could have drowned."
A Northern Constabulary spokesman said: "Mr Ord is a very lucky man; this incident could have had a really tragic outcome.
"When police officers found him, he was wet and distressed, not knowing where he was.
"Although the river was quite high after all the recent rain, Mr Ord fortunately went into a shallow part and managed to scramble out. If he had gone into the middle of the river, he would have been in trouble."
Jack Wilkinson, manager of the Spey Valley Smokehouse, said: "No damage was done to our building, and we are just glad Mr Ord is all right. He is lucky it was such a warm night and he didn’t get hypothermia."
