AN undertaker enjoying a walk in the park sparked a £2,000 air rescue when she was bowled over by her enthusiastic dogs.
Heather Bisset, 40, from Dunbar in East Lothian, was on her way back to her car when her two playful cocker spaniels Rollo and Thorn came flying into her, dislocating her knee.
She says it aggravated an old injury – with both her knee cap and the back of the knee dislocating – when she fell awkwardly at Dunbar’s John Muir Country Park.
Thorn and Rollo had run into their owner while excitedly playing with a friend’s dogs and she was left in agonising pain near the park’s frog pond, close to the beach at Bellhaven Bay.
Paramedics were forced to attend the accident by foot as they could not reach Mrs Bisset by ambulance and it was suggested that the Coastguard may even have to come and rescue her.
But, after more than an hour lying in agony, a helicopter was drafted in from Dundee and airlifted the mother-of-three to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.
Emergency services would have been forced to fork-out around £2,000 for the search and rescue helicopter to come and perform its duties.
The accident happened 20 years after Mrs Bisset fell and dislocated the same knee, while chasing after a £20 note which had blown away from a cash machine.
Mrs Bisset, who was with her five-year-old daughter Dayna and a friend when she toppled over, said: “We had nearly done the whole walk round John Muir and we were on our way back to the car park.
“As we were coming down the dogs were all just playful, and a couple of them ran into me and dislocated my knee.
“I think my friend thought I was winding her up and my daughter thought it was a joke.
“They hadn’t realised how serious it was.
“They phoned an ambulance and the first staff had to come on foot and we weren’t able to get a stretcher to me.
“Another ambulance came from Haddington and I think there was a few complications.
“I was obviously in a lot of pain but the paramedics and the police were great.”
Mrs Bisset, who does occasional work with William Main funeral directors, was allowed home the same evening on a pair of crutches, but will have to undergo weeks of physiotherapy.
But she said it will not stop her from going back to the park because “it’s a lovely walk”.
She said: “I’m still on crutches but I will be going back once I’m fit and able.”
