Mountain bike enthusiast, Marc Boyd, was riding down a track not unfamiliar to him in Glencoe when his foot slipped on the pedal while landing from a drop, causing him to plummet down the hillside.
“My brother and I were coming down the track on what was to be our last run,” Marc recalls.
“My foot hit the ground as my pedal hit the back of my leg, and as I began sliding down the hill, I noticed my foot facing the wrong way.
“It all happened quite fast. As I stopped sliding down the hill, I looked down to see that my foot was back facing the right way. For a minute I thought I had imagined it, but then when I tried to lift my leg up – my leg lifted but my foot stayed flopped over on the ground.”
Marc, 29, sustained a severe compound fracture to his tibia and fibula. This resulted in him being airlifted by Scotland’s Charity Air Ambulance (SCAA) to Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow (QEUH), where he endured 17 days in hospital and four operations.
After shouting over to his brother to ‘Call an ambulance!’, he inspected his leg more closely and noticed that the bone had broken through his skin causing his leg to bleed.
“Where I had fallen, I had a clear line of sight of the A82, which meant I could see the land ambulance’s blue lights from miles away in the distance,” he reflects.
Staff from the Glencoe Mountain Resort also arrived to assist paramedics from the Scottish Ambulance Service.
One of the biggest obstacles facing Marc’s rescuers was moving him from the hillside. The severity of his injuries meant he required specialised care at QEUH – a journey time of 2.5 hours by road.
SCAA was therefore deployed to help Marc reach the care he needed in the quickest time possible.
“It’s so strange to think that there’s a helicopter pulling in to land just for you,” he says. The pilot landed in the Glencoe Mountain resort car park.
“Two paramedics arrived from the air ambulance to assist. The level of professionalism was apparent from the instant they arrived on the scene – they gave me a feeling of confidence.
“They quickly made me feel comfortable in what was far from a comfortable situation.”
Paramedics administered morphine as a pain relief prior to stretchering Marc to the aircraft. The crew monitored Marc’s condition throughout the 25-minute journey. He also recalls peering out the window when they flew over his hometown of Clydebank, Glasgow.
“I was told later that when my mum spotted the helicopter flying overhead, she said: ‘That’s my boy in there,’” he points out. “While I was looking down from the helicopter, she was looking up at us.”
The paramedics transferred Marc directly to the resus unit. His road to recovery consisted of four operations which included plastic surgery and skin grafts.
“The hospital stay was quite horrendous because it was during Covid and I wasn’t allowed any visitors,” he admits.
“But the care I received was exceptional, from the paramedics arriving at the scene to then being delivered to hospital.
“All I was thinking after I fell, was that I needed help to get there. I was holding out for the paramedics arriving and it really put my mind at ease when they did – I knew the right people were there.
"From the minute the paramedics arrived it was just professionalism in the best way. I’d like to offer them the biggest thank you for the work that they do every day and also for the way they go about it.”
Marc has now fully recovered from his injuries and can still be found frequently roaming the hills on his mountain bike.
