INJURED BOY RESCUED AFTER FALL FROM CLIFF Pwllheli, Caernarvonshire. At 7.25 on the evening of the llth March, 1962, the coxswain received a message from the Abersoch fire brigade that a boy had fallen over the cliff at Cilan Head, and that because of the overhang they could not get any ladders down to him.

The help of the life-boat was asked for.

The honorary secretary was informed, and further enquiries were made of the coastguard and police. At eight o'clock the life-boat Katherine and Virgoe Buckland was launched with a doctor on board in a light south-easterly wind and a slight sea. It was low water. The life-boat reached the scene at 9.45 and stood off a short distance from the shore. The second coxswain and the doctor put off in a 9-foot dinghy, which had been taken with the life-boat, and two parachute flares were lighted. By the light of the flares the second coxswain could see that it would be impossible to land, as there was a considerable surge on the rocks. The two men therefore returned to the lifeboat.

During the evening the boy's father and a fireman had managed to lower themselves by ropes some distance from the boy's position and had crawled along the rocks to reach him, but they were unable to come back the same way because of the rising tide. The coxswain decided to try to go alongside a projecting ledge, and after three attempts he succeeded in bringing the life-boat close enough for the second coxswain to jump ashore. The boy was unconscious and had severe head injuries.

A rope was fastened under his arms and another to his feet, and he was carried to the life-boat and hauled aboard. The boy's father, the fireman and the second coxswain were then hauled aboard the life-boat. The doctor attended to the boy's injuries and the life-boat returned to her station, arriving at two o'clock in the morning. An ambulance was waiting to take the boy to hospital. The life-boat suffered damage to her bilge keel and both propellers during this service..