htrider wrote:I was trying to find some history on Alex Pilkington - anyone any ideas? Given his time I'm presuming he must have a fair bit of long distance stuff under his belt?? Huw was still in Raigmore earlier on a drip but OK (dodgy water then heatstroke confirmed). Mountain rescue got involved seemingly but looks like a good end result given where it happened. Fair play to Scott Lindsay for helping him out - you can see from his track that he had to go a few miles up the road to get a phone signal then stuck with him until 1am until help arrived, then scratched to see Huw right.
Hey Phil
This is fairly close to how it played out. Still trying to piece it together myself looking at track leaders and when I made phone calls as it doesn’t quite a-line with my memory. My spot was being a bit irregular.
I found Huw lying at the side of the trail in a really bad way when doing the last big push before descending to Achfary. He was vomiting a lot and very confused and distressed but insisted I should ride on. I refused and we began the long process of getting off the hill together. Huw is a good friend of mine so there was no way I was leaving him there. I think this was just after 6.
Getting down took a while and at the bottom fortunately there was a group camping and the leader helped me contact an ambulance for Huw.
He then drove Huw in his minibus the section of fire road to the tarmac road to Achfary as I pedalled behind. Huw wouldn’t let me get in the bus because it would mean a DQ. By the time Huw had got to a road and been taken away in the ambulance to hospital it was several hours later and mentally my ride was over. I couldn’t switch back to race made as getting Huw down had taken a lot out of me.
Fortunately the wonderful Jenny Graham, another friend, came to my rescue and drove several hours from a Inverness to get me whilst I lay in my bivvy beside the spot the ambulance had left from. I did go along the road in this period to get more phone signal to phone my dad and I think Jenny got me not long after 1.
In the days that followed Huw got out of hospital and then it was his turn to look after me as I came down with a vomiting bug myself. Likely caught from attending to him on the hill whilst he was being sick. No surgical gloves. Lesson learnt.
Again my timings could be off as both Huw and I had some sporadic tracker data.
As we came down the hill we were passed by a few riders and all enquired if we needed help. I was happy to let them ride on.
When I found him I was on schedule for dinner in Kylesku and he had been on schedule for drumbeg stores himself before his sickness.
Huw can remember almost nothing from when he started vomiting to when he got to hospital.
It’s easy in hindsight to say take a water filter but I’m sure everyone on here has drunk water off the hill and to my knowledge this is the first time a rider has taken such a bad turn in any of the Highland Trails from the water. Huw is a mega experienced rider, outdoor instructor and done lots of over seas expeditions. He won’t have taken any water that looked suspect. Just really bad luck.
Well done to all the finishers and all the scratchers too. It’s hard to piece together the stories from spot data sometimes.