Craven helicopter service made a dramatic rescue of a long-haired fell-runner on Wild Boar Fell this weekend.
65-year-old Bob Dylan was nearing the top of the Fell and was within a hair's breadth of beating his personal best time of 29 minutes. But he fell on the Fell and banged his head. Heavily concussed, he lay there for over 2 hours before being spotted by the Craven helicopter, which approached the man and hovered closely above him.
"Unfortunately, we'd lost all our ropes", said one of the rescue crew. "But when we saw the man's hair blowin' in the wind, we just reached out and grabbed hold of it. We couldn't get him into the 'copter because we were already full with six other rescued hikers. But we managed to hold on to him 'till we got to Airedale Hospital. Good job he had long hair."
Mr. Dylan had a suspected hairline fracture and a severely stretched scalp, but is now recovering in hospital. His doctor said "he'd survived by the skin of his teeth - or rather, by the length of his hair."
