The two walkers cling to the steep slope on Hart Fell. Photo: Royal Navy

A man who was clinging on to a shepherd’s crook held by his friend was plucked to safety by a Royal Navy helicopter as he lay above a steep slope on a Scottish hillside.

The two walkers lost their footing when a path gave way on Hart Fell in the Moffat Hills on Sunday.

The pair called for help from the 808m (2,651ft) fell and a Sea King helicopter from HMS Gannet in Ayrshire was diverted from a training exercise to the site, north-east of Moffat in Dumfriesshire, at 11.25am, arriving at the scene 25 minutes later.

A Royal Navy spokesperson said: “One walker was sitting down at the top of the precipitous incline, with his friend lying down on the rocky ground just below.

“The lower of the two was clinging to a shepherd’s crook held by the other.

“The men, who had been walking a well trodden path when it disintegrated below their feet, were stranded just below a ridge at the top of a gully and the rescue was complicated still further by low cloud base.

“Because of the nature of the surrounding hills and the tricky visibility, it was necessary to effectively reverse the helicopter into a position as close as they dared to the two walkers.”

Lieutenant Commander Jon Green, pilot and duty aircraft commander, said: “We had to get as near to them as we could, so that we could safely winch our aircrewman down.

“But, because we knew that they were not only on unstable ground, but that one of them was holding the other by his crook, we had to keep the hover as high as possible to avoid dislodging either the people or the scree with the downwash from the helicopter.

“With the low cloud base, however, this was very difficult.

“There was no question of our aircrewman Chief Petty Officer Shaun ‘Boogie’ Knights detaching from the winch; the conditions underfoot were just too unpredictable. So we had to put ourselves into a steady hover about 100 feet directly above them both.

The pair were above a gully on the hillside. Photo: Royal Navy

“Boogie went down on the wire and managed to quickly secure a strop around the lower of the two men, before recovering him to the aircraft. The same procedure was repeated for his walking partner.”

The spokesperson said neither walker was injured, but both were very shaken by their dramatic experience. The emergency call to the police was made about 11.05am, so the walker had been holding his friend on the end of the stick for some 45 minutes by the time the helicopter came on scene.

Both walkers were experienced and well equipped.

The two walkers were delivered to waiting police at a nearby farm at 12.20pm.

On board the aircraft with Lt Cdr Green and aircrewman and paramedic CPO Knights were pilot Lt Cdr Martin Lanni and Lieutenant Angela Lewis, observer-navigator.