STORM EPIC.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20238, 23 February 1934, Page 5

STORM EPIC.

Three Lighthouse Keepers Marooned. RELIEF SHIP DRIVEN BACK. The keepers in a lighthouse off the rugged West Coast of Scotland were marooned by the recent heavy gales. When the steamer Hesperus set out to relieve the watch in the Hyskier Lighthouse she was driven back by the fury of the storm, and was forced to take shelter near the island of Canna. This is the first time since Captain Tulloch j has been skipper of the Hesperus that | he has failed to take a relief crew to | the Hyskier Lighthouse. I Meanwhile three men, one of them with a foot severely injured in an accident ten daj\s before, were held captive by the wild seas at Dubh Artach, j the lighthouse off lona. It was doubtI iul if the Hesperus could return in time to catch the tide in order to set out for Dubh Artach. Had the gale made it impossible to take Budge, the injured man, off the lighthouse in the next few days, he and his two comrades would have been forced to endure another fortnight’s captivity, till the tides were once more favourable. Budge urgently required medical treatment for his fractured ankle. His companions had tried to set the broken | bones on wireless instructions from a doctor at Dunessan. The injured man bore his long ordeal with the greatest fortitude. Daily talks by radio v v ith their wives and families at Erraid, fifteen miles away, cheered the captives. On the following dav one of the most thrilling episodes in the history of the lighthouse service was brought to an end by the taking off of the three men who had been marooned. The Hesperus fought her way to the lighthouse in heavy seas and brought off the men with the aid of a derrick and bo sun’s chair.