Students come to rescue of a lost walker on mountain trek

NIGHTIME screams for help in the Lake District spurred four King Edward VI School (KES) students into action to help a distressed woman who got lost when she was out hill walking.

Students Zoe Maundrill, Rachel Brooks, James Bennett and Daniel Strand were sat playing cards in their tent at the foot of Scafell Pike when they heard the screams at 9.30pm last Tuesday.

The four were part of a 17 student expedition organised by the school for their Gold Duke of Edinburgh Awards.

“The light was fading and we tried yelling back. The woman was shouting “help” repeatedly. We slotted into our roles immediately, it had been drilled into our training,” James said.

Eventually they tracked the woman down and discovered she was a woman called Maggie Lawrenson in her sixties.

The students immediately offered the shelter of their tent by which time Maggie had started to calm down.

Maggie was reunited with her husband the following day.

Rachel Biggs, Duke of Edinburgh Award manager at KES said: “It was the students’ first night of the expedition and they responded superbly, we are all very proud of them.”

Full story in this week’s Herald.