12 July 2007: Cowgirls

A group of teenage girls on a geography field trip set off a full-scale search and rescue mission, after becoming scared by a herd of cows.

The seven girls, aged between 14 and 15, from St Albans, in Hertfordshire, were on a field trip in Dorset. They were dropped off at night, three miles from their outdoor centre in Swanage and told to map-read their way back to the centre. But the teenagers got stuck when they came across what they decided were potentially deadly cows.

Following their distress call the Swanage Coastguard rescue team, police and an ambulance were scrambled to the scene to rescue the students. None of them was actually hurt.