VOLUNTEERS from the Kelso Border Search and Rescue Unit were called to rescue a missing 80 year-old Eyemouth resident, with dementia from East-Cost mainline tracks at 4am this morning.

It comes less than a fortnight after the team had to rescue an elderly walker on the Pennine Way, near Kirk Yetholm.

The group were alerted shortly after 1am and quickly made the journey to Eyemouth to set up a temporary control centre near the woman's home.

Eight members of the Borders Search and Rescue Unit were joined by a specialist search-dog handler and later by a police helicopter. 

It was from the helicopter that the woman was spotted, walking along the main East-coast rail line shortly before 4am. 

Team leader Stuart Fuller-Shapcott, who was managing the search from the control centre, said: “When she was spotted actually on the lines, it suddenly became extremely urgent.

"With me was a police inspector, who immediately liaised with train operators to make sure any traffic on the railway was stopped.

"The airborne helicopter directed our search teams to the location, where the subject was found moving slowly with two sticks on rough railway ballast," he added.

"She was confused and had sustained minor injuries in reaching the lines through hedges and fences, and in stumbling repeatedly on the difficult ground.

"We ferried her to safety on a stretcher, from where she was transferred to a road-ambulance and taken for observation to the Borders General Hospital."