TRAINS travelling on the East Coast Main Line in East Lothian had to be stopped last night when an elderly woman was spotted wandering along the line.

In the early hours of this morning, an 80-year-old woman with dementia was reported missing from her home in Eyemouth.

A police helicopter, volunteers from the Border Search and Rescue Unit and a specialist search-dog handler took part in a search.

Eventually, the helicopter spotted the woman walking along the East Coast Main Line shortly before 4am.

BSARU 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 liased 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.

“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 hospital.”