FREAK high winds have been blamed for causing a coach crash that left five elderly tourists injured and dozens more with cuts and bruises.
The coach rolled off the A83 near the Rest And Be Thankful in Argyll after being struck by a sudden gust, according to witnesses, and careened down an embankment before coming to rest metres from Loch Restil.
Eleven people remained in hospital, including five of the most seriously hurt who had been airlifted to the Southern General in Glasgow and the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley. All of the injured are said to be in a stable condition.
Around 25 others were treated at the scene by emergency services, who declared the accident a major incident and closed off the road for a time.
All aboard the Lochs and Glens Holidays bus were said to be sightseers from Kent.
The accident happened at a spot renowned among locals for the for freak winds that have caused numerous accidents through the years.
Donald Clark, owner of The George Hotel in Inveraray, said that the most recent incident had occured just over a month ago.
He said: "I had friends coming up an hour before the accident happened and they said it was very blustery. It's a dangerous spot, there have been a lot of accidents there. There was a Mercedes Sprinter van blown over about six weeks ago.
"There is a gulley there and there is a funny wind pattern, there is a bit of a freak wind that comes, there
has been a pattern of accidents there."
He added that a road worker had told him it was believed that the wind caught the coach and blew it over the bank, where it had rolled within six metres of the fresh water loch.
Those passengers who were classed as "walking wounded" were led in a human chain up the embankment by emergency services staff, and given treatment by the roadside.
A spokesman for the Met Office said that it has been "very breezy" in the area around the time of the crash, but that there had been no high winds warnings put in place.
He said: "We were seeing gusts of around 25-30 mph, so there were strong winds, but not what you would call strong enough to bring about road and bridge closures.
"It was blustery over much of Scotland and those winds were pretty typical for this time of year."
XREF PAGE 5 LEAD
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article