The daughter of a woman swept to her death in a swollen river has told how she has taken up kayaking in a desperate bid to find her mum’s body.
Hazel Nairn, 71, was carrying her West Highland terrier and walking arm-in-arm with a friend when both women lost their footing on a flooded track in severe weather. They were pulled into the River Don, which had burst its banks.
While her friend pulled herself to safety, she witnessed Hazel and dog Rory disappearing down the torrent of water close to Monymusk, Aberdeenshire.
Hazel’s daughter Anneka Gray found Rory’s body five days after the tragedy in November but there has been no trace of the former air hostess despite searches.
Anneka, 38, said: “What has happened to our family has been a living nightmare. To be six months on and not have found any trace of my mum is so painful.
“For months we used to walk the banks every day searching for her, then at night I’d wake up worrying that I’d seen something we might have overlooked.
“My partner and I have been having kayak lessons so we can safely get into the water and search for her. For a long time after my mum disappeared, the river remained high but now water levels have dropped.
“At the very least, we might have expected to find a piece of her jacket on the barbed wire fence of one of the flooded fields she was initially swept across. It’s like she vanished into thin air.”
Hazel’s family are working with rescue and forensic search expert Peter Faulding in the hope of finding her body. They are appealing for experienced kayakers and canoeists to join them in a search of the river.
Anneka’s mum had been walking home from a charity shop having looked after her granddaughter Georgia, seven, when the tragedy happened.
Torrential rain and strong winds meant the River Don had burst its banks and the area was the subject of a weather warning.
Anneka said: “Because of the flooding, my mum knew she couldn’t take her car over the little bridge she crossed to get home but the route was walkable with wellies. She’d got most of the way home when she met a friend.
“Mum had Rory in one arm – the water was too deep to walk through – and she had linked her other arm with her friend. They were walking on what was a raised track when they slipped.
“Her friend thinks there was a current that caused the rubble under their wellies to move. They both fell into the water and were dragged by the current, ending up fully submerged in the fields that had been flooded with fast-flowing water.
"Mum’s friend hit a fence. Her joggers stuck on the barbed wire – that’s what saved her. She could still see Mum but by this time she was a fair distance away.”
Hazel’s friend pulled herself out of the water and ran to a nearby cottage for help. Emergency services attended the scene but couldn’t find Hazel or her dog.
Anneka, who had spoken to her mum just two hours before, said: “Because of the location and weather, no helicopter could be sent to look for Mum.
"The first I knew about what happened was when I went to visit her three hours later and there were two officers near her cottage.”
Anneka, who lived close to her mum in Monymusk, said police were optimistic about finding her alive but hopes faded.
She said: “Christmas was a blur. After we found Rory’s body, the vet kept him for us, with the hope that when we found my mum they would be buried together. But we’ve buried him in our garden.”
Anneka and brother Greg, 41, first heard of Faulding’s work as a search and rescue specialist after he joined the search for missing Nicola Bulley.
He has advised them to put up posters downstream from where their mother fell that details her clothes and boots. He is studying maps and aerial photos of the river to pinpoint the most likely spots where she might be.
Anneka said: “Peter thinks there is a very minimal chance her body has gone as far as the sea. The Don is so curly and swirly he thinks she is under something, stuck. He has been advising us about getting out of the kayak, lifting debris and looking under rocks.”
Anneka is asking for volunteers who are kayakers or canoeists to help them search the Don from Monymusk to the North Sea, starting on May 13-14. She plans to share details of the search via social media and on Missing People Scotland.
She added: “Mum was wearing blue denim jeggings, a wine-coloured jacket, a baby pink-coloured top and navy blue wellies with tartan.”
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