A FAMILY have offered their heartfelt thanks to emergency services after a Christmas Day walk almost turned into a festive nightmare.

Lucas Watson had gone for a walk with his family at Tyninghame Beach when he slipped from a rope swing.

The teenager suffered a fractured skull and a clot on the brain and was taken to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh by helicopter before being rushed by ambulance to the city’s Western General for life-saving surgery.

Now, just over three months after the accident, Lucas has made significant strides towards recovery, including returning to university.

His mum, Vicky, said she could not thank the emergency services enough for the role they played in ensuring her son pulled through.

She said: “It was amazing and the neurosurgeons were unbelievable. Everybody piled into trying to help.

“They were phenomenal and he has made a full recovery.

“It was almost too much to hope for that he would pull through and the fact that he has done so without any permanent damage is just amazing.”

The family, from Edinburgh’s Morningside, have regularly visited Tyninghame Beach and decided to make a festive visit on December 25.

Vicki and husband Drew were joined by Lucas and his youngster sister Emily.

Usually, they would walk along the beach but with the tide in they decided to walk along the headland, where they found a rope swing.

The rope swing was about 10 to 15 feet above a rocky section of beach, with 19-year-old Lucas losing his grip and falling onto the rocks below.

His mum said: “He was not making any noise and then started groaning.

“We had called the ambulance and were wondering how they were going to get here with no roads, and we gave them coordinates.

“They arrived half an hour later, with paramedics and the SORT (Special Operations Response Team) and then the Coastguard teams from Dunbar and North Berwick.

“There were about 25 folk there and we could not get him off the beach.”

Initially, the family thought Lucas had suffered concussion.

However, Vicki said: “The paramedics said it was not concussion and that it was a serious head injury.

“I think it was extremely touch and go whether he would survive.”

A helicopter ambulance from Prestwick was called and he was airlifted to the hospital in the capital.

He was then taken to the Western General Hospital, where a team of neurosurgeons carried out a craniotomy, where a section of the skull is removed to expose the brain.

He then spent time in intensive care and high dependency before being released from hospital on New Year’s Day.

Vicky said: “The doctors said it was a Christmas miracle. It was a great New Year’s Day to get him home.”

Vicki described the experience as “surreal” and like “a nightmare” waiting at the hospital to see if her son would pull through.

Now, the family are doing everything they can to say thank you to the emergency services.

Vicki’s sister, Sarah, had been planning to run the Edinburgh Marathon in aid of BASICS (British Association for Immediate Care), who provide training courses in management of trauma, medical emergencies and major incidents as well as co-ordinating local schemes throughout Scotland.

The event has been cancelled due to coronavirus but Vicky confirmed her sister was hoping to run the route, which follows the East Lothian coast as far as Gosford before turning and finishing at Pinkie Playing Fields in Musselburgh, solo on the scheduled date of May 26 before taking on the course again on the rescheduled date of September 6.

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