Gaelic lullabies and ‘bodies everywhere’: How the UK’s deadliest whale stranding in decades unfolded

Mairi Robertson Carrey/BDMLR via AP

It was 8.13am on the morning of her 12th wedding anniversary when Màiri Robertson Carrey was woken by the emergency alert.

Two hours further up the coastline, a pod of pilot whales had run aground and was now trapped on a remote beach on the Isle of Lewis – with a desperate race against time underway to save the lives of as many as possible.