Station secretary saves drowning man Trearddur Bay honorary secretary Jack Abbott was awarded a Royal Humane Society award and Resuscitation Certificate for saving the life of a man he found face down in the sea on 24 May.

The casualty was trying to retrieve his boat, which had slipped off its trailer and headed off into the sea.

The sailor, in his late 50s, swam after the vessel but got into difficulties and tried to get back to shore.

Some minutes late Jack, who was rigging his sailing boat outside the lifeboat station, looked up and was horrified to see him floating face down in the water some 50m from the shore.

'I immediately swam out to the casualty, managed to turn him on his back but could find no signs of life.' he said. 'As I dragged him a few metres to safety up the beach, I shouted to an onlooker to call an ambulance...' Jack gave emergency mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the man who, initially, did not respond - it was only with considerable perseverance that the man started to cough up seawater and began laboured breathing. Jack asked the beach warden to fetch some oxygen from the beach house and the ambulance arrived.

'By this time he was recovering quite well and was beginning to wake up. We got him to the ambulance,' he said.

'It was only good fortune that I was on duty at the lifeboat station. The RNLI first aid training saved the day.'.