A local woman’s attempt to get into the record books ended in a dramatic rescue on Tuesday afternoon. The woman, a Mrs. Mona Tab-Ash of Windsor Gardens Alnwick was attempting to become the first person to white-water raft down a notorious stretch of the Washer Burn from the Backfield Hemmel to the Kinloss cundy. A route that passes through the fearsome Nettle Rapids, a place that has claimed many lives. Mona, who is one of Northumberlands top surfers successfully rode the Willow burn Boar, passing through the treacherous Mucks Pipe without injury in 1999 and surfed in and out of the Rumbling Kern on a single wave last year, a feat thought impossible. Originally four were to raft the Washer Burn but one thought it was planned for Thursday, one went to the Moor Burn by mistake and the other had to go home for a “kaka” leaving Mona to face the journey alone. Mona, as is the tradition, was on a piece of foam rubber taken from the sacred Letch Cooch and she passed through the upper stretches of the burn with ease making light work of The Brocken Telly Notch and the ferocious Ahl Be Dammed Bends but she came to grief in the Nettle Rapids. Muckleheed, Mona’s Basset hound raised the alarm and the Heckly High House air sea rescue team was scrambled and they managed to winch Mona to safety. The helicopter pilot Capt. Jasper Wax said “when we got to the burn we found Mrs. Tab-Ash stuck fast in the mouth of the cundy, fortunately she’s a big lass or she would have been swept away. We had to employ some unconventional methods to free her but we got her to safety and that’s what matters. Recovering from her ordeal in the front room of the Dirty Bottles, Mona said “whey man am gutted, a nearly had it cracked, a waz deyin fine but a hit summit in thu rapids, a deed cuw a think, anyway am ganna have another go at eet as soon as a git this winch mans foot oota ma arse. The winch man declined to comment.