Climber falls 1,000 feet down Highlands mountain and lives

A CLIMBER who survived a 1,000ft tumble down a mountain yesterday joked that he’d had worse injuries shaving.

Adam Potter, 36, bounced off three rocky outcrops as he fell down a nearly-vertical cliff in the Scottish Highlands.

Then rescuers ignored him because when they spotted him he was standing on his feet, reading a map.

Amazingly, Adam, who fell from the summit of Sgurr Choinnich Mor, still plans to climb Mount Everest later this year. He said: “I just slipped. Speed built up really fast and every time I tried to slow myself I went over a cliff edge.

“Then I would land on a slopier bit and try to lose speed and then go over another cliff and so on.

“I had almost lost all my speed, when I saw I was about to go over one more cliff, and I thought that might have been the end.”

Knocked unconscious, Adam woke and started to read his map which is when the chopper rescue crew arrived – and flew on.

Lt Tim Barke said: “We spotted a man at the bottom and thought t couldn’t be him, as he was on his feet reading a map.” Finally believing that he was their man, they winched him to safety.

Lt Barke added: “He must have he fell, almost flying.” He is lucky to be alive. It’s hard to believe someone could fall that distance and been able to stand up.”

Speaking from Southern General Hospital in Glasgow, Adam who was with his girlfriend Kate Berry, 30, said: “The only thought as I fell was ‘this is going to muck up my Everest trip.’

“My back is broken in three places but not the places that put you in a wheelchair. And my face is a bit mucked up, but I’ve had worse shaving.”

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Call to 'tag' bottles of alcohol in Scotland

Scottish Labour have called on local licensing boards to enforce the "tagging" of bottles of alcohol to help reduce under-age drinking.

Under the scheme, off licences are given a unique code to mark bottles so they can be traced to a specific store.

If under-age drinkers are found with a tagged bottle, officers can check the shop's CCTV to see who bought the alcohol.

The Scottish government said tagging was an "operational matter" for police.

A tagging scheme is currently in place in parts of Dundee after being introduced by Tayside Police, working with Dundee City Council and local off licences.

Scottish Labour said it was urging licensing boards to use bottle tagging in other "hot spot" areas where under-age drinking and antisocial behaviour have been found to be a problem.

Antisocial behaviour

Labour's Community Safety spokesman James Kelly said: "Under-age drinking can all too often be a direct cause of antisocial behaviour in communities across Scotland.

"This innovative but simple approach will hopefully help bring to justice those peddling booze to young people."

Mr Kelly said those who supplied alcohol to young people needed to realise that they were often "fuelling antisocial behaviour" as well as breaking the law.

He added: "The SNP may be happy to turn a blind eye to antisocial behaviour, but Labour is not. I urge licensing boards to adopt this new approach to hammer home the message that supplying under-agers with alcohol is never acceptable and will not be tolerated."

The Scottish government said it had always encouraged police to make use of bottle tagging in the fight against under-age drinking.

A spokesman said: "As an intelligence-led tool, it can help forces crack down on the problem by proving that certain shops are selling alcohol to under-18s.

"Bottle-tagging remains an operational matter for police, often deployed during targeted exercises against under-age drinking. However, we would caution against the blanket deployment of this measure, to ensure it remains effective."

The Scottish Conservative party said it had "reservations" about the practicality of the bottle tagging scheme and that it should be made more difficult for people to buy alcohol for under-age drinkers in the first place.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-12083695