A Sunday-morning walk in the countryside for a group of foreign residents was interrupted by a ram who had got his goat up.
OK, we had first better explain to our non-native English speakers that to “get ones goat up,” means to make them angry or annoyed.
It comes from a tradition in horse racing, apparently: thought to have a calming effect on high-strung thoroughbreds, a goat was placed in the horse’s stall on the night before the race. Unscrupulous opponents would then steal the goat in an effort to upset the horse and cause it to lose the race.
Now on with the article! A 64-year-old Dutchwoman made this unfortunate encounter in a steep-sided area between Río Culo Perro and Trevélez… We kid you not; the name of the river is dog’s arse. Anyway, the woman, attempting to put some distance between herself and the irate ram, fell and rolled 20 metres down a very steep, ravine in the side of the hill.
Although a 20-metre drop, rolling all the way, is bad enough, if she hadn’t come to rest on an outcrop, she would have gone another 50 metres straight down, so she was lucky within her misfortune.
The Guardia Civil, mountain-rescue team, Greim, received a call out at 14.45h that Sunday and flew out in the rescue chopper in order to locate her from the air. However, no soon having taken to the sky they received news that two Belgians required assistance near where the goat incident had taken place, so they landed in a meadow where there was a shepherd and asked him if had seen anything of three foreigners and a male goat. He said he had seen two men and pointed the officers in the correct direction.
When they found the hikers, one of them was battered and unconscious whilst the other only had a cut after having tripped over during his escape from the xenophobic goat. They were quickly flown to the Granada main hospital, as they needed to refuel and having topped up, they set off again. However, bad weather made the pilot turn back at 21.00h, leaving the mountain-rescue team to proceed on foot.
They finally found her, who by now was also suffering from level-one hypothermia, as well as having two broken wrists and various other injuries. Had the team not found her, it would have been highly unlikely that she could have survived the night in the open.
The rescue team stabilised her condition and found a nearby cortijo where to shelter during the night. As soon as dawn arrived the helicopter set off to pick her up and take her to the PTS hospital in Granada.
A normal Guardia-Civil patrol were sent out to find the ram, but to no avail.
(News: Trevélez, Alpujarra, Granada, Andalucia)