Sunburned dolphin swims again after becoming beached and suffering ‘horrific injuries’

A DOLPHIN that suffered severe sunburn after becoming beached in Scotland has been spotted ALIVE following a "miracle" escape.

Spirtle, a female dolphin, was left with "horrific" injuries after spending hours trapped on a sandbank in the Cromarty Firth.

She was spotted on May 29 by a couple who became lost whilst travelling to a dolphin watching hotspot in the Moray Firth.

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Dr Andrew Brownlow from Scotland's Rural College told the BBC the sea-mammal was "lucky" to escape alive.

"This couple had wanted to go to Chanonry Point and got lost," he said.

"They read their map wrong and ended up on the Nigg peninsula. This whole region dries out almost entirely and they spotted the dolphin flapping in the mud."

Brownlow led an urgent mission to get the dolphin back to sea along with a team of divers from British Divers Marine Life Rescue and the Scottish SCPA.

Normally,  this would have been the end of the story.

But the dolphin was actually spotted again and her wound appears to be healing.

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It's now hoped she will go on to have babies and make a full recovery, although there's no way of telling what the outcome of her story will be.

Barbara Cheney, research fellow at Aberdeen University, said: "We've not seen anything like this before. It is quite a unique case and hopefully we will be able to continue to keep an eye on her."