Southwaite Bridge in the Lorton Valley, scene of Mr Weir's brush with death. Photo: morebyless

The Cumbrian mine owner who claimed a mountain marathon brought the area ‘within inches of turning the Lake District mountains into a morgue’ has had his own brush with death.

Mark Weir sparked a row during last year’s Original Mountain Marathon when he criticised organisers for running the event during what he termed ‘biblical’ storms. This week, the Honister Slate Mine owner was trapped in his tractor in a swollen river while returning to his home near Cockermouth.

Mr Weir was at the centre of the whirlwind of controversy in 2008 when high winds and torrential rain led to the abandonment of that year’s mountain marathon, based at Seathwaite, England’s wettest place. At the time he told the media: “We have come within inches of turning the Lake District mountains into a morgue. We need to learn from it.

“On a good day this place is heaven on earth but in extreme freak weather like this it is hell. Now we’ve had several hundred, into the thousand, stranded, cold, tired, some hypothermic.

“We’ve overwhelmed the emergency services and the poor mountain rescue have been out trying to find people on the side of the mountain in the dark.”

OMM organisers in turn criticised Mr Weir for transporting marathon entrants to Cockermouth, meaning they could not keep track of where all the missing runners were.

This week, the 43-year-old mine owner found himself fearing for his life as the tractor he was driving was swept away in a flooded river after a bridge collapsed south of Cockermouth.

He told the Times & Star newspaper: “The front of my tractor became submerged and it stopped. My tractor was floating down with the water.”

“I thought this is it for me. The river was very fast. I was cocooned inside the tractor. I had a trailer on the back of the tractor.

“It was a near-death experience. I told my kids that I may not have come home that night. It was a close one. I thought I was dead.”

Mr Weir returned the following day in his helicopter to find the tractor, which has now been retrieved from the River Cocker and is being repaired.

Mountain rescue teams have been stood down from their flood alert and are now available for rescues on the Lakeland fells again.