Caught in the loop

This story is not for the squeamish.

A fisherman was out in his boat, with a young crewmember, fishing for crabs and lobsters. In order to catch those creatures, you use a creel. This usually sits on the seabed, with a line leading up to a float, which bobs on the waves above. A creel, a lobster-pot, is a cage with a trap and bait. The bait is a piece of fish and the crustaceans will climb into the creel to eat the bait. They are unable to leave the creel.

Our fisherman was hauling the creels to the surface, using a hauler, a small winch. This can take up to 2 tons and has 75 hp of power. One day last week, he found an entanglement of rope coming up to the surface, so he stopped the hauler to sort out the rope. As he was doing so, loops of rope wrapped themselves around the controls of the hauler, which started up unexpectedly. Before he knew what had happened, the fisherman's hand was dragged into the winch and his fingers mangled. Fortunately, this stopped the winch. Unfortunately, it cut off three of his fingers.

He pushed his hand into a rubber glove to minimise the bleeding, whilst his crewmember put the fingers on ice. They rushed the boat to shore, where the local doctor administered first aid. A Coastguard helicopter flew the man to hospital in Glasgow, 150 miles away, for treatment. Surgeons were unable to re-attach the fingers, because they were too badly damaged.

The fisherman returned home yesterday, Monday, and counts himself lucky to be alive, even if minus three fingers, which were amputated above the first knuckle. He could have been dragged overboard by the line, or have bled to death.

The incident serves to underline the danger of being a fisherman out on a boat. I have previously relayed stories from around Scotland of fishermen going overboard, and never being found (alive). One very sad episode happened 4 years ago, not far from where this particular incident took place - near the Isle of Eigg, 100 miles south of Stornoway. Another creelman had gone out to retrieve lobsterpots on a beautiful September evening, when his boat was seen going round in circles in the sea between Eigg and its southerly neighbour, Muck. Mallaig lifeboat sped to the scene, only to find the boat abandoned. Although nobody knows what happened, it is safe to assume that Brian Walters wasdragged overboard. A bench in his memory has been erected on the mainland at Arisaig.

Image courtesy West Word