A young Scot has miraculously escaped serious injury after accidentally walking off a 15ft cliff and plunging onto rocks.
Mikey Hutton was on a video call with his brother after getting lost on his way home from a night out in Kirkcaldy, Fife, on Saturday.
The 32-year-old got off the train at Burntisland station and was attempting to walk back to his home in Kinghorn when he got confused and went the wrong way.
The labourer wasn’t looking where he was going and plunged down the cliff face before landing wedged between two rocks.
After his relative raised the alarm, police, HM Coastguard rescue crews and RNLI Kinghorn scrambled to save him but were looking in the wrong location due to Mikey being disoriented.
He was told to download the what3words app and was found almost straight away before being rushed to the Victoria Hospital for treatment.
Mikey has decided to speak out to raise awareness about the mobile phone app which he firmly believes saved his life due to the incoming tide.
He said: “I was heading back home from a night out and I got on the train at 11.48pm, heading towards Kinghorn where I normally get off.
“But when I tried to get off, the doors didn’t open and so I had to get off at the next stop in Burntisland which I don’t know well.
“I was quite drunk so I called my brother and told him I’d walk back home going the same route that the train went. But I’ve actually headed in the wrong direction.
“I wasn’t looking where I was going because I was on the phone to my brother and I’ve ended up walking onto the coastal path and fell off the cliff.
“It was a 15ft drop and straight onto rocks. I landed in between two rocks. I grazed my hands and my lower back, towards my hip, was like a balloon.
“My brother tried to call the police and they were telling me to shout as loud as I could. But they couldn’t find me because I thought I was somewhere else.
“The police then told me to download an app called what3words on my phone and they were able to find me straight away.
“When they couldn’t find me, they called my brother and were double checking that he was being serious because there was a hoax call ongoing at the same time.
“That app absolutely saved my life.
“I was taken to the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy for a CT scan and it came back all clear - I just had bruising on my back. I can’t believe I haven’t broken any bones.
“They told me that I was really lucky because the tide was coming in and that app saved me.”
Police Scotland and HM Coastguard confirmed they were called to reports of an injured person on a beach on the Fife coast in the early hours of Sunday morning.
A force spokesperson added: “We were called around 0.15am on Sunday, April 3, to a report of a concern for a person on the beach front area of Burntisland near Monks Walk.
“Emergency services attended and a 32-year-old man, who had fallen and sustained a back injury, was taken to the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy by the Scottish Ambulance Service for treatment.”
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