A hillwalker may have been struck by lightning in a fierce electric storm over Wester Ross on Thursday.
His body was found 3700 feet up in the Fannich Hills near Ullapool on Friday afternoon by rescuers after a search by more than 50 volunteers from four mountain rescue teams.
Last night, police named the dead man as Dr Nicholas Kehoe, a bachelor and consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Hallamshire Hospital and the North General in Sheffield. He lived at Hollow Meadows, Sheffield.
Dr Nigel Coad, 39, an accident and emergency doctor who was with Dr Kehoe in the area, refused to comment about his friend's death.
Dr Kehoe was wearing just a teeshirt and shorts, although he had a rucksack which it is believed contained bad weather clothing. He was last seen at 2pm on Thursday.
Two hours later, thunder and lightning hit the area. Locals said it was the worst storm in decades.
The police communications mast at Braemore Junction was struck by a bolt, as was a klondiker in Ullapool Harbour.
Locals thought the man may have been hit by lightning, or had fallen when a bolt hit the ground near him.
A post-mortem examination will be carried out.
The alarm was raised on Thursday after Dr Kehoe failed to make a rendezvous with Dr Coad at Loch Droma.
Dundonnell Mountain Rescue Team and an RAF Lossiemouth helicopter were called out and carried on their quest throughout the heavy thunderstorms of Thursday afternoon.
Rescuers on foot found Dr Kehoe around lunch-time yesterday.
Mr Angus Jack, leader of Dundonnell Mountain Rescue Team, said Dr Kehoe could have been hit by lightning, or knocked off balance by a bolt which landed nearby and fell to his death.
''I think the casualty tried to get off fast and went for the most obvious route,'' he said. ''Unfortunately, the terrain where he was is worse than it looks on the map, with a lot of large crags.
''Sadly he went over one of these crags and fell 500 feet to his death.''
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