to a hover and was unable to ascend to the plateau and so he took a wide detour to Glenmore Lodge. There, the crew was asked to make an airborne check of various shelters, without any delay for refuelling. At the Curran shelter, there was nothing to be seen, but as they turned to go back to Glenmore Lodge, they spotted what they thought was a red tent. Edging closer and without reference points in the whiteout, they realised that they had got very close to a person on her hands and knees. Davidson was still up on the plateau and trying to crawl for help. Two crew were unloaded away, the closest they could manage. Then, they reached the casualty but could not carry her to the helicopter because her legs were locked in a kneeling position. The helicopter could get no closer because when it applied power, the blowing snow obliterated vision and so one of the crew jumped out to lead it in the right direction by using the winch wire. There was no sign of anyone else from Davidson's group. Davidson was taken by helicopter to Aviemore, where she was met by ambulance. She was in the advanced stages of hypothermia and her hands were frozen solid, but although she was confused and barely able to speak, she managed to let her rescuers know that the rest of the party was close to where she had been rescued. She could say only the words "Burn – lochan – buried" to rescuer Brian Hall, but that gave sufficient clues. By then, the cloud base had become lower, and no helicopter could get nearby, but several search teams on foot converged on the location of the catastrophic bivouac through snow sometimes waist deep. The Glenmore Lodge instructor John Cunningham along with Beattie and Paisley were the first to find the scene. The bodies of six teenage students and the assistant were dug out, one from a depth of . All were dead except the last person to be uncovered, Raymond Leslie, who was still breathing. He was cared for by a doctor from the Braemar MRT on his first serious call-out. At 15:00, a Royal Navy Sea King helicopter arrived, guided by the leader of the RAF Kinloss MRT walking ahead firing flares. Leslie, the surviving boy, was airlifted to Raigmore Hospital, where he and Davidson eventually recovered.