Chris Rampling Blackpool Sands
Chris Rampling - RNLI at Blackpool Sands
Déjà vu
Three volunteers from the Dart lifeboat education team had spent the day talking about beach safety to two hundred children at the Grove Primary School in Totnes. The presentation included a section on the inadvisability of launching an inflatable in an off-shore wind and the children had fun working out how to tell which way the wind was blowing.
The old fashioned ideas of holding up a wet finger to decide this appears to be imprinted into children at an incredibly early age.
The RNLI advice to parents is to have the inflatable on the end of a long tether and not to let the children float freely on the sea. It may sound “nannyish,” but we frequently have to rescue frightened children blown away from beaches into deep water.
In the presentation we use a mnemonic based on the word SAFE.
S is for “Spot the Dangers.” The children can play a game on the beach deciding who is in the right or wrong place. Someone swimming between the red and yellow lifeguard flags; right place. Playing football or throwing balls for the dog near the cliff edge; wrong place.
A is for “Always go with a friend”
F is “Find and read the safety signs.” These large yellow signs designed by the RNLI are to be found on most of the larger public and private beaches. They highlight the facilities and possible dangers on a particular beach. Even if you know a beach well it is worth glancing at the signs as the topography of the beach may have been changed by the winter storms.
E is for “In an Emergency, stick up your hand and shout.”
The RNLI lifeguards are on duty when the flags are flying and always keeping a watch for anyone getting into difficulties. You are five hundred times less likely to drown on a lifeguarded beach than on one where they are not present.
If you need to know where lifeguards are stationed on beaches anywhere else in the country please refer to the RNLI central web site on www.rnli.org.uk and search on the tab labelled lifeguards.
As we returned from Totnes the pagers sounded. Two local youths had rowed off in their inflatables from Slapton Sands in a strong offshore wind. A holidaymaker immediately realised that they would have difficulty returning to shore and called the Coastguard who then tasked the Dart inshore lifeboat.
One inflatable managed to return but the other, with only one oar and no lifejacket, was rescued one mile offshore (pic. above). The Coastguard helicopter also attended but the lifeboat reached the youth first. The rescue has been recorded as a life saved.
Details of all our rescues, with maps, photos and sometimes video footage can be found on the local RNLI station web site.
First published July 2012 By the Dart