AT about midnight on 19th April an urgent message was signalled from the island of Papa Stour, in the Shetlands, asking for a doctor and a nurse to be sent at once to the help of a boy, four years old, who had fractured his thigh.

The message was picked up at Sandness and passed on to Aith. A whole north gale was blowing, with a very heavy sea. It was snowing and very cold.

No ordinary boat could have made the journey in such weather, and the motor life-boat, The Rankin, was called out to bring the boy over from Papa Stour to the mainland. If she had gone for him at once the tide would have been running in the teeth of the gale on the return journey. So that he might make it in the most favourable conditions the journey was delayed.

The life-boat put out at seven in the morning, reaching Papa Stour, a distance of ten miles, two hours later.

On the way she picked up Dr. Roy Mackenzie, of Walls, and the district nurse, Miss Mary Morrison. Landing them was very difficult as they had to be taken ashore in a small rowing boat. It was even more difficult to get the little boy into the life-boat. The rough sea made the handling of a stretcher impossible in a small boat, so a box was hastily made and the boy was strapped into it.

In this box he was taken out to the life-boat, and, in spite of the heavy seas breaking over her, he was got safely on board. The life-boat then n pide for the mainland, and landed the boy at West Burrafirth. From there he was taken by motor bus to the hospital at Lerwick, thirty miles away.

The life-boat got back to her station at 2.45 in the afternoon. The rewards to the crew and other expenses of the service were paid by the Department of Health for Scotland.

This is the third occasion in fifteen months on which the Aith motor life- boat has been to Papa Stour in a gale on account of an urgent case of illness.

In January 1935 she took Dr. Mackenzie and Miss Morrison to a man who had been seriously injured in an accident.

In October 1935 she took them again, and also a surgeon, to perform an urgent operation.

During the present year four other motor life-boats have acted as ambu- lances.

Last February and March, the motor life-boat Thomas McCunn, at Long- hope, Orkneys, brought two serious cases of appendicitis from islands to the mainland. In February the motor life-boat Cunard, at St. Mary's, Isles of Scilly, brought a serious case of appendicitis to Penzance, and also took a doctor in a hurricane to attend to a grave case of illness in a neighbour- ing island. In January the Barrow motor life-boat brought ashore in a gale, from the motor vessel Innishaven, of Chester, a man. who had been injured by being washed against a winch ; and in March the Dun Laoghaire motor life-boat brought ashore from the Kish lightship in Dublin Bay one of her crew who had fallen overboard and had to be taken to hospital. Thus, in the past twelve months, life-boats have acted as ambulances in three cases of accident and three of appendicitis, and have taken doctors to two urgent cases..