Kate Stone in serious but stable condition after suffering injuries to her neck and spine while holidaying in Lochailort

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© AlamyA red deer stag in the Highlands
A Cambridge University academic is fighting for her life, with injuries to her neck and spine, after she was attacked and gored by a stag while chatting with friends outside a cottage in the Highlands.

Kate Stone was first treated at a local hospital on Monday night after the attack at Lochailort near Fort William, in which her throat was pierced. She was then airlifted to the Southern General in Glasgow when the seriousness of her injuries was realised.

She remains in intensive care where her condition was described as "serious but stable". Her neck was pierced so deeply that the animal had to shake itself free.

Stone, a research engineer at Cambridge's institute of manufacturing, who also runs her own hi-tech printing company, was holidaying with a group of friends, staying in a B&B near the site of the attack. She was with a group of friends standing chatting after they returned from a ceilidh at the nearby Lochailort Inn, in the darkness outside the home of a local musician.

The B&B owner, Gary Burton, said he learned of the attack at about 2.30am when one of the group returned to use the landline to phone the hospital and ask about her condition. "I think what happened was that the stag panicked. It was trapped in a fenced garden having got through a gate. I don't think there was anywhere else to go and it charged out of the gate," he said. "It's very bizarre and very horrific."

He said the attack was unprecedented locally. "This is a one-in-a-million event which has shocked the whole community. We are at one with nature in Lochailort, and we have deer all around us.

"We are all hoping and praying that Kate pulls through. I don't pry into our guests' personal lives but I had a conversation with Kate and I know she is a very outdoors person, and loves camping and walking. It would be a tragedy if she couldn't do that any more."

The incident happened outside the home of local musician Jim Hunter, who witnessed the attack, which he described as a freak accident.

"We had been to the pub up the road and were coming back to my house through the gate in the darkness and the big stag must have got trapped in the garden as we have deer fences around it," he told the Cambridge News. "It must have panicked when it saw us and the only way out was through the gate that we were standing at.

"It just ran at us and went straight through us and its antlers must have caught Kate in the neck. There was blood coming from her neck and we took her inside. The paramedics came in about 20 minutes which is good as we are a bit isolated here, and gave her oxygen. They were fantastic."

A neighbour of Hunter's said she was wary of the stags, particularly at night: "When they see a human up fairly close they do not always run away. They stand there facing up to you, pawing the ground in a threatening manner."