An elderly woman sparked a massive air-sea rescue after she thought screams coming from her television were swimmers in distress, Coastguards said yesterday.
A Royal Navy helicopter, a Coastguard team and a lifeboat sprang into action after the Ayr pensioner raised the alarm while watching a horror movie set at sea.
But soon after they were scrambled on Monday night, Coastguards realised the distressed woman had mistaken the cries of horror coming from her TV for a genuine emergency.
A Clyde Coastguard spokesman said: "She was watching a programme on TV and she phoned 999 and asked for the Coastguard.
"We could hear the screams in the background. She just thought it was a real incident happening in front of her." He went on: "We absolutely saw the funny side of it. What else could we do? You can't charge her with hoax calls, you just feel sorry for her."
The woman had been watching the American thriller Open Water. Made in 2003, it tells the story of Tom and Eileen Lonergan, who get stranded at sea while scuba diving in the South Pacific.
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