JANUARY 31ST. - AITH, SHETLANDS.

On the evening of the 30th of January, a doctor reported that a man was seriously ill on the Island of Foula and in urgent need of a doctor. He was a merchant seaman, recently repatriated from a prisoner-of-war camp in Japan. For some days gales had prevented the ferry-boat making the passage between the island and Aith, and no other boat was available. That night the seas were too rough at the island for a boarding boat to be able to put out to the life-boat, when she arrived, but in the morning the postmaster telephoned to Aith that the seas had moderated, and at 9.30 in the morning of the 31st the motor life-boat The Rankin was launched. A west-north-west gale was blowing, with a very heavy sea. She took the doctor with her and arrived at Foula at one in the afternoon. It was decided that the only hope of saving the man’s life was to bring him to hospital at Aith, and the lifeboat left the island with him at four o’clock.

She reached Aith at 7.30 and the man was sent at once to hospital. - Rewards, £19 18s. 6d.

Repaid to the Institution..